ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the divisions in the post-socialist left landscape of unified Germany, and argues that the main cleavages between different left movements and organizations can be explained by their activities in, and understandings of, the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The East German Board of Associations (OKV) was founded in 1993 as an umbrella organization of associations claiming to advocate the interests of citizens of the former GDR within the newly unified German state. Accordingly, the most attractive political partner for OKV was and is the indirect SED-successor party Die Linke, now the biggest radical left party of Germany with a support base of around 8 per cent of the national constituency. In the early 1990s, the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) was still dominated by former SED members, and presented itself as an "Eastern German interest party".
