What was the date of the first free parliamentary election in East Germany after the Wall fell? The answer is March 18, 1990. Voters elected the 400-member Volkskammer, East Germany’s parliament, in the country’s first genuinely competitive national election.
The vote followed the peaceful revolution of 1989, when mass demonstrations forced the Socialist Unity Party to abandon its monopoly on power. Earlier East German elections had offered voters little real choice: the ruling party controlled an approved National Front list, and official results routinely exceeded 99 percent.
The March 1990 election was held just over four months after the Wall opened on November 9, 1989. The Alliance for Germany, led by the East German Christian Democratic Union and supported by West German conservatives, won the largest share of the vote. Lothar de Maizière later became prime minister.
The date is often confused with October 3, 1990, the day reunification took effect, or November 9, 1989, the date the Wall opened. March 18 marked the democratic election; it did not mark the end of East Germany, which continued to exist until reunification.