From the 1950s onwards, a differentiated special needs education system (Sonderschulwesen) was established in the GDR (Regulation on the Schooling and Education of Children and Adolescents with Significant Physical and Psychological Impairments, Verordnung über die Beschulung und Erziehung von Kindern und Jugendlichen mit wesentlichen physischen und psychischen Mängeln, 1951). Special needs schools (Sonderschulen) and other special needs education institutions (Einrichtungen der Sonderpädagogik), including so called assisting schools (Hilfssschulen) had to ensure the education of all children, adolescents and adults with significant physical or psychological disabilities (Law on the Unified Socialist Education System, Gesetz über das einheitliche sozialistische Bildungssystem, 1965, § 19). In theory, special needs education in the GDR was seen as part of general education, only the methodological approach at special needs schools shows some specific differences. For the special needs school system in the GDR, as for all other educational institutions, the 1965 law was binding in all its principles.

The fundamental education policy and legal document for special needs education institutions was Section 19 of the law. This paragraph ensured that special needs schools and special needs education institutions aimed to guarantee education and care for children, adolescents and adults with significant physical or mental disabilities. These institutions cared for the hard-of-hearing and deaf, the visually impaired and the blind, those with speech impediments, as well as those with mental and physical disabilities, behavioural disorders, as well as children and adolescents with chronic illnesses or after hospital stays. This legal basis was later supplemented by the Fifth Implementing Provision to the Law on the Unified Socialist Education System - Special Needs Education System in 1968 (5. Durchführungsbestimmung zum Gesetz über das einheitliche sozialistische Bildungssystem – Sonderschulwesen). The student body was thereby limited: mentally challenged children and young people who were incapable of attending school were accepted into special needs schools. Insofar as they exhibited physical and psychological deficits and disorders that were thought to affect their entire personality, they were thought to only be able to absorb and process general educational content to a limited extent (ebd., 1968, § 3 (1)).

The special needs grades at general special needs schools were categorised into three tiers according to the severity of intellectual disability, with the so-called A-tier for children and adolescents with mild intellectual disability or debility (Debilität), as well as B and C tiers for those with moderate intellectual disability. From the 1970s at the latest, C tiers at special needs schools were dissolved, which resulted predominantly in a grouping of special needs students deemed capable of attending school (bildungsfähig), but also one who was declared incapable of attending school (bildungsunfähig) but eligible for support (förderungsfähig). The group of children and adolescents deemed to possess a severe degree of feeblemindedness or idiocy (Schwachsinnigkeit, Idiotie), the so-called children incapable of attending school as well as ineligible of support (schulbildungsunfähig, förderungsunfähig), was further separated from these two groups. From around the mid-1970s onwards, they were placed in special needs support facilities that were not part of the GDR's education system but a part of the health care sector (see Koch & Koebe, 2019).