Glass ballot box of the Volkskammer in the Palace of the Republic
- Object
- 1989
The East German Palace of the Republic once stood here. It was where the Volkskammer, nominally the country's highest constitutional organ, met from 1976 onwards. Until the peaceful revolution in autumn 1989, however, the Volkskammer was a rubber-stamp parliament that simply ratified documents presented to it by the East German party leadership. The ballot box was used by the deputies to cast their votes in the first freely elected Volkskammer in March 1990. The glass box symbolized the new transparency of parliamentary decision-making in a democracy. On 23 August 1990, it was used to vote on East Germany's accession to the territory governed by the Basic Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.