Gera Demands

Eastern Bloc
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The Gera Demands (German: Geraer Forderungen) were a set of demands made by the East German leader Erich Honecker on 13 October 1980. Directed at the West German government, they called for far-reaching foreign policy concessions.

Formulated in a speech to a party conference at Gera, his demands entailed four stipulations: that West Germany recognise the existence of East German citizenship, that the Central Registry of State Judicial Administrations be defunded, that the two German states establish official diplomatic relations, and that West Germany recognise the middle of the Elbe river as its eastern border.

The Gera Demands followed a period of rapprochement between the two German states. They were received with scepticism by the West German public and none of Honecker's demands were heeded by the government of Helmut Schmidt. According to the historian Ulrich Mählert, the initiative was meant to reassure the Soviet Union of continued East German support in the recent flare-up of the Cold War.