[nickpp]

I too was alive in those times and I remember them very well. I remember a doctor visit meant a pack of Kent or a bag of coffee beans. How a kind's school year meant a deodorizer or some soap for the teacher. How a promotion or advancement meant joining the Party or ratting on your coworkers to the Secret Police.

Just in a different EE country, not in GDR - I must specify. Here we were starving. And they did gave the order to fire - the troops obeyed.

I must also admit that we are extremely skeptical of anything coming out of the ex-GDR around here. We know it was thoroughly infiltrated by the KGB and Stasi controlled everything in the country. We also watched Merkel making the whole Germany dependent on Russian energy, practically delivering it in Putin's hands - who was in KGB in GDR...