[1] The predecessor of the NVR, the Security Commission of the Politbüro of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), met for the first time on 6 July 1954.

With the enactment of the "Law on the Formation of the National Defense Council of the GDR" on 13 February 1960, the Security Commission was transformed into the NVR.

[3] On 9 April 1968, when the 1968 GDR Constitution became effective, the NVR was designated as the supreme leadership body of the state in time of war or national emergency, with full legislative and executive authority.

Egon Krenz became chairman of the NVR on 24 October 1989 following Honecker's resignation as state and party leader, but held on to power himself for only a few weeks in the wake of the Die Wende and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

After German reunification in October 1990, individual members of the NVR were prosecuted in connection with their political responsibility for the regime's border policies, including the use of deadly force (Schießbefehl) and the deaths of escapees along the inner-German border and the Berlin Wall.