It was governed by the Soviet Military Administration in Germany, (German: Sowjetische Militäradministration in Deutschland (SMA)).
The German Central Administration for Justice (German: Deutsche Zentralverwaltung für Justiz (DJV)) was subsequently founded in November 1945, with the SMAD appointing Eugen Schiffer as their first DJV president, though he was dismissed and replaced in 1948 with Max Fechner.
In 1949, with the founding of the German Democratic Republic as a nominally independent state, the DJV was transformed into the Ministry of Justice.
After speaking critically of the prosecution of strikers in the protests of June 1953 in an interview with Neues Deutschland, Fechner was removed from office, denounced as an "enemy of the state and the party" and spent three years in prison and Stasi internment.
After the fall of the Berlin wall, the Ministry of Justice oversaw the transfer of its powers back to the states and the drafting of the Unification treaty under the supervision of Kurt Wünsche.