<P> The SED controlled the National Front coalition, a federation of all political parties and mass organizations that preserved political pluralism . The 1949 constitution formally established a democratic federal republic and created an upper house called the Länderkammer (States Chamber) and the Volkskammer (People's Chamber). The Volkskammer, according to the East German constitution the highest state body, was vested with legislative sovereignty . The SED controlled the Council of Ministers and reduced the legislative function of the Volkskammer to that of acclamation . Election to the Volkskammer and the state legislatures (later replaced by district legislatures) was based on a joint ballot prepared by the National Front: voters could register their approval or disapproval . </P> <P> All members of the SED who were active in state organs carried out party resolutions . The State Security Service (Staatssicherheitsdienst, better known as the Stasi) and the Ministry of State Security had a role similar to Western intelligence agencies . </P> <P> The Third SED Party Congress convened in July 1950 and emphasized industrial progress . The industrial sector, employing 40% of the working population, was subjected to further nationalization, which resulted in the formation of the People's Enterprises (Volkseigener Betrieb--VEB). These enterprises incorporated 75% of the industrial sector . The First Five - Year Plan (1951--55) introduced centralized state planning; it stressed high production quotas for heavy industry and increased labor productivity . The pressures of the plan caused an exodus of East German citizens to West Germany . The second Party Conference (less important than Party Congress) convened in July 9--12, 1952 . 1565 delegates, 494 guest - delegates, and over 2500 guests from the GDR and from many other countries in the world participated in it . In the conference a new economic policy was adpoted, "Planned Construction of Socialism". The plan called to strengthen the state - owned sector of the economy, further to implement the principles of uniform socialist planning, and to use the economic laws of socialism systematically . </P> <P> Under a law passed by the Volkskammer in 1950, the age at which Germany's youth may reject parental supervision was lowered from 21 to 18 . The churches, while nominally assured of religious freedom, were, nevertheless, subjected to considerable pressure . To retaliate, Cardinal von Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, put the SED in East Germany under an Episcopal ban . There were also other indications of opposition, even from within the government itself . In the fall of 1950 several prominent members of the SED were expelled and arrested as "saboteurs" or "for lacking trust in the Soviet Union ." Among them were the Deputy Minister of Justice, Helmut Brandt; the Vice-President of the Volkskammer, Joseph Rambo; Bruno Foldhammer, the deputy to Gerhard Eisler; and the editor, Lex Ende . At the end of 1954 the draft of a new family code was published which aimed at destroying all parental influence . </P>

The gdr's debt to western banks increased between 1970 and 1989 from