If there had ever been free internet in the GDR, then this domain would probably have been used: the ending “.dd” for East Germany was thought up at the time as a counterpart to the ending “.de” in the West – but the turning point came in between.
At the time of German reunification in 1989, the internet was still in its infancy. Nevertheless, a suitable URL ending for GDR web addresses was already being considered at the time. While today only “.de” is known as the country ending for Germany, there was actually a suitable ending for the GDR for a short time, but it was never really used and was quickly forgotten.
DDR domain “.dd”
The ending was written “.dd” and was supposed to work as a counterpart to the West German “.de” – but it didn’t get that far. Because the domain was never registered in the “Domain Name System” and when the Wall came down it was too late for that. The domain “.de” was already registered in 1986 and thus several years before reunification. With the “.dd” domain, however, this was not so easy due to the tense political situation.
As part of the Eastern bloc, the GDR was subject to strict regulations. To date, all new top-level domains must be authorized by the US Department of Commerce. A practice that dates back to the Cold War and made the release of the GDR domain a delicate matter at the time. Efforts were made to make the “.dd” ending a reality, but after the fall of the Berlin Wall, “.de” became the standard country ending for Germany.
Also read: This website lets you surf as it was in 1989
have colleges actually used the DDR domain
However, the “.dd” domain was not completely unused: the universities in Jena and Dresden, among others, used the extension for their internal communication for a while – but “.dd” websites could never be reached freely via the Internet.