 As part of the process the regional legislatures of the nine states comprising the new country were invited to endorse the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany.All except one of the states provided unqualified backing (and conditional backing from the dissenting state, Bavaria, became implicitly unconditional through the actions of the other states).In Hamburg, however, Magda Langhans and the rest of the Communist group in the assembly voted against the basic law in order to avoid the risk of driving a greater wedge than already existed between West Germany and the fourth occupation zone, the Soviet occupation zone, which was itself reinvented later the same year as a separate Soviet sponsored German dictatorship, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).