Meaning of "GDR" in the English dictionary

East Germany, formally the German Democratic Republic or GDR, was a nominally sovereign state within the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War period. From 1949 to 1990, it administered the region of Germany which was occupied by Soviet forces at the end of the Second World War—the Soviet Occupation Zone of the Potsdam Agreement, bounded on the east by the Oder-Neisse line. The Soviet zone surrounded West Berlin, but did not include it; as a result, West Berlin remained outside the control of the GDR. The German Democratic Republic was established in the Soviet Zone, while the Federal Republic was established in the three western zones. The East was often described as a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Soviet occupation authorities began transferring administrative responsibility to German communist leaders in 1948, and the GDR began to function as a state on 7 October 1949. Soviet forces, however, remained in the country throughout the Cold War to counter the heavy US military presence in the West.