In 1968, the East German government adopted a new, fully Communist constitution that was based on Marxism–Leninism, political unitarism, and collective leadership.

The People's Congress was meant to be an alternative to the Western London Conference of Foreign Ministers taking place at the same time.

The second Congress, which had by this point been outlawed in Western occupied zones, met a year later and elected a Council (Volksrat).

This council would seek to serve as an assembly representing the entire country, irrespective of occupying nation.

The German People's Congress met for a third time in 1949 and accepted the drafted constitution.

[1] The German People, imbued with the desire to safeguard human liberty and rights, to reshape collective and economic life in accordance with the principles of social justice, to serve social progress, and to promote a secure peace and amity with all peoples, have adopted this Constitution.The constitution begins by declaring the indivisibility of the German people as a nationality, and primacy of the states (Länder) in politics.

The federal government is to be limited in its authority to issues which affect the whole of the nation, all other affairs falling to the states.

[3] The constitution of the Republic is declared as the basis for all governmental action and the government must abide by its principles.

Associations which are aligned with constitutional principles and which support democracy may be permitted to stand candidates for election.

[8] The economy of the Republic is to be structured from the principles of social justice and the need to provide all people with an existence of human dignity.

The constitution declares the economy must benefit the whole people and that each person will receive their fair share of the yield of production.

The economy is to be overseen by legislative bodies and it is the task of public officials to supervise and implement this economic plan.

[9] Property and enterprises owned by war profiteers and Nazis is to be appropriated by the state without compensation.

[12] Every citizen has an equal right to an education, may freely choose their vocation, and the teaching of art and science shall be free.

The Laender will establish public school systems and the logistics for their operation, the Republic shall issue legislation to outline their basic function, and provide for the training of teachers.

[13] It is the duty of the school to educate the students in the spirit of democracy and culture, to the end of making them responsible individuals who take part in their community.

This means tuition, all text books, and instruction material that is used in compulsory education is to be furnished without cost.

The members shall represent the wishes of their respective Laendar but will follow freely their own conscience.

[17] Imbued with the responsibility of showing the whole German nation the road to a future of peace and socialism, in view of the historical fact that imperialism, under the leadership of the United States of America and in concert with circles of West German monopoly capital, split Germany in order to build up West Germany as a base of imperialism and of struggle against socialism, contrary to the vital interests of the nation, the people of the German Democratic Republic, firmly based upon the achievements of the anti-fascist, democratic and socialist transformation of the socialist system, unitedly carrying on its working classes and sections the work and spirit of the Constitution of October 7, 1949, and imbued by the will to continue unswervingly and in free decision on the road of peace, social justice, democracy, socialism and international friendship, have given themselves this Socialist Constitution.At the Seventh Party Congress of the SED in April 1967, Ulbricht called for a new constitution, declaring that the existing constitution no longer accorded "with the relations of socialist society and the present level of historical development".

[19] A new constitution was needed to conform with the Marxist–Leninist belief in the progression of history and the role of the working class led by the SED.

[19] The new constitution would also reflect the role of the state as the party's main instrument in achieving the goal of a socialist and eventually communist society.

[19] Two months later the commission produced a document, which, after "public debate", was submitted to a plebiscite on April 6, 1968.

It is the political organization of the workers in the cities and in the countryside, who jointly under the leadership of the working class and their Marxist-Leninist party will realize Socialism."

For the first two decades of its existence, the GDR maintained that it was the sole lawful government of all of Germany, denouncing the Federal Republic as an unlawfully constituted NATO puppet state.

In the early 1970s, following the rise of Erich Honecker and increased international recognition of the GDR, the SED abandoned reunification in favor of detente.

Article 1 of the amended constitution began with the words, "The German Democratic Republic is a socialist state of workers and farmers.

It is the political organization of the workers in the cities and in the countryside under the leadership of the working class and their Marxist-Leninist party."

In the wake of the Peaceful Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the constitution was significantly revised in November 1989 to prune out its Communist character.

However, by that time, the newly freely-elected Volkskammer (parliament) was moving in the direction of outright unification with the Federal Republic, and so the draft constitution went nowhere.