The Party That Never Dissolved

r@raphaelbauer.com (Raphael Bauer) — Thu, 01 Oct 2026 09:30:00 +0200

On 8 December 1989 the Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (SED), the party that had ruled East Germany for forty years, opened an extraordinary congress in an East Berlin sports hall. At the end of the debate a delegate from a farm-machinery combine in Erfurt stood up and moved that the party dissolve itself. He said he was acting on instructions from the members who had sent him, and he asked for a vote. When the vote came, not a hand went up for it. According to Günter Benser, a delegate who later wrote up the congress for the party’s own historical commission, both the jubilation and the relief were considerable¹.

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The Party That Never Dissolved