Immediately after the end of the war in 1945, the German Communist Party [Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands or KPD], acting on Stalin’s instructions, rejected social-democratic efforts to unite the two workers’ parties. But from the fall of that year on, the KPD, fearful of electoral defeat in the face of the SPD’s renewed organizational strength, changed its strategy and forced the fusion of the KPD and the Eastern SPD under massive pressure from Soviet occupiers. The merger was sealed at the Unification Party Congress, April 21-22, 1946. This poster for the 1946 merger features the slogan “Unity.”