@cstross @tbortels @Remittancegirl
The BRD made huge efforts of investment into the ex DDR.
It was no good. You can't wipe out
12 years of Nazism followed by 45 years of Stalinism that easily.
I crossed the iron curtain many times,
and life there was really bad according to my western standards.
But you can't beat nostalgia, because life is always cool when you're young.
45 years of propaganda, where Russians are the good guys and western democracies the nazis...