The actions of the Government are solely determined by the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic which was adopted by the German People's Council, confirmed by the Third People's Congress, and put into force by the People's Chamber. The Government takes its origin from the first independent German people's movement and is thus the first independent German Government. Its creation by the German people themselves shows how different it is from the German separatist Government set up on the basis of the Bonn Constitution. The Bonn Constitution is nothing more than supplementary regulations appended to the Occupation Statute of the Western Allies. The constitutional conditions created in Western Germany can in no way be recognized as the expression of the political will of the German people themselves. The West German separate state was not created in Bonn, but in London. Bonn merely carried out the London recommendations which were really the orders of the Western Allies.

The former German People's Council, which has now been transformed into the People's Chamber, has repeatedly made suggestions to the West German politicians concerning a common political platform for the creation of a democratic public opinion (Willensbildung) in the whole of Germany. In Western Germany they were not interested in this democratic method and think they can get farther by means of unlimited incitement and vituperation against the Soviet Union and against the Soviet Zone of Occupation. In the face of this policy of chauvinist propaganda, the Government of the German Democratic Republic will endeavour to rally the sound political forces of Germany on the basic questions of national unity and the creation of a peace treaty. The Government will do everything to serve the unity of Germany and peace, and will do everything in its power to hinder anything that might jeopardize the achievement of this aim. The West German politicians, the Western Allies, and beyond them public opinion in the world at large will in the end have to acknowledge that the German problem can only be solved if the right to political self-determination is conceded to the German people. We are sure of our historic success in Western Germany, too, because our aims are in complete accordance with the natural and simple laws of our people's existence. The West German separate state is showing even at the hour of its birth, all the pathological symptoms of a political changeling, all the signs of crisis, and it will therefore not stand up to the judgement of history.

The way of peace which the Government is determined to pursue also means acknowledgement of the reparations obligations imposed on us, the struggle against the spirit of fascism and militarism and the revival of organizations embodying them, the creation of a democratic body politic and of peaceful and friendly relations with all the countries of the world.

. . . The greatest impediment to our German democratic and peaceful state comes from the imperialist Western Powers who have succeeded in achieving the present deplorable split. But we must remember that the policy of dividing and dismembering Germany does not date from the year 1946. Even during the war there were signs of strong tendencies among the Western Powers towards carving Germany up into a number of small states which should, if possible, be hostile to each other. It is known that at the Conference of Teheran in 1943 the USA submitted a proposal that after the war Germany should be divided into five parts. The Government of Great Britain was not opposed to this proposal; Churchill and Eden suggested in October 1944 that Germany should be split into three mutually independent separate states. That Great Britain and the USA had to keep their plans of division in abeyance during the Potsdam talks is solely due to the consistent policy of the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which unswervingly insisted on the maintenance of the unity of Germany and resolutely resisted, even then, all plans for dismemberment. This attitude found its expression above all in the statement of Generalissimo Stalin of 9 May 1945 that the Soviet Union has no intention of dismembering or destroying Germany.

. . . We do not want any other state except a democratic state which will overcome the dreadful heritage of fascism and militarism and will maintain friendly relations with all the peoples of the world. Our political aims are therefore in conformity with the aims laid down as binding on Germany at Potsdam. The Western Powers, however, have broken the Agreement which they signed so solemnly. Instead of carrying out the democratization, demilitarization, and denazification of Germany, they are endeavouring to transform the parts of Germany occupied by them into a colony governed and exploited by the traditional methods of imperialist colonial rule. There can be no question of democratization, demilitarization, and denazification. The forces of reaction, carefully preserved from the outset and reinforced by a neo-fascism that is gaining more and more ground in Western Germany, have once more resumed their old positions of power with the active support of the occupying Powers. The dismantling of the German war industry envisaged in the Potsdam Agreement, where it was expressly stated that the German people should remain in possession of all means of developing a peaceful industry, was transformed into the dismantling of industrial enterprises and whole branches of industry exclusively serving the German peace economy in the interests of competition, while rearmament is conducted at the same time. Under the Potsdam Agreement dismantling should have been completed years ago. The Government will never acquiesce in the fact that in Western Germany an Occupation Statute which is devoid of all legal basis is used for the purpose of transforming a part of our fatherland into a colony. We shall know how to find a way to help the German people to achieve a united, democratic, and peaceful Germany.