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East Germany. The union was founded in 1946 as the Industrial Union of Mining, a section of the new Free German Trade Union Federation (FDGB). While most of the union was divided into districts based on location, a separate district was created for workers at Wismut, the uranium mining company, and in 1950 this was split away to form the Wismut Industrial Union. In 1951, the FDGB created the Industrial Union of Metallurgy, to which ore miners were transferred, but the union was dissolved in 1951 and the ore miners returned to the mining union. In 1963, the Industrial Union of Energy, Post and Transport was dissolved, and energy workers were transferred to the mining union, which was renamed as the "Industrial Union of Mining and Energy". By 1964, the union had 375,000 members.)