Before choosing a fragment, there is a kind of preface called Robust Mandate for the reader and a selection entitled Comparison of Draft and Final Version of a Law (called Direktive). Click on the second selection Entwurf mit Direktive to get a photo animation. You see the author Thomas Körner comparing the wording of a draft with the final directive issued.
Before any decision on a legislative directive a draft was formulated which could then have undergone further changes after a (national) debate.
In Art. 21 § 2 the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic of 1968 gives the citizens of the GDR the opportunity to prove their will in plebiscites. However, the competence to conduct a referendum is at the discretion of the People’s Chamber (Article 53). Article 65 (3) introduced the procedure of a so-called popular (public) discussion, which had already been practiced before the adoption of the new constitution. In a public debate the draft would have been discussed within selected professional circles.
Körner proves how comprehensively the professional groups have used their rights of co-determination: no changes in content have been made, only in syntax. Instead of a semicolon they put a comma, the word “until” was replaced by a hyphen, the term “strength” was replaced by the “strengthening”. So actually there was no public debate.
Make your own decision: Entwurf mit Direktive