East German Volvo 264 TE

[patronanejo]

Originally Posted by redboy

East Germany certainly had its faults, as does every country, but they had much less economic stratification than we have in the UK; a 28 hour work week, free university, child care, health care, and a country home for everybody. They were miles ahead of us on personal 'freedoms', with progressive divorce laws, legalised homosexuality, and a strange penchant for nudism!
Its just a shame that the government was so paranoid- all the people wanted was to be able to travel, see the world, and not be spied on- perhaps if the Party had trusted its own people to see for themselves what life was like in Maggie's Britain at the time, they would have made the decision that the security offered by the GDR was preferable to free market economic policies that resulted in nearly 40% unemployment in industrial areas after the wall came down.

Dude. I'll match your antipathy toward Margaret Thatcher (and Ronald Reagan too), but East Germany was nobody's idea of a garden spot.

First off, they would kill you if you tried to leave. People tried anyway, though--that's how bad it was. They all enjoyed the same level of crushing poverty, with a side of mind control. No freedom of speech, no free press, and constant paranoia--because the Stasi would hear you if you complained anywhere--in the park, on the bus, even in your own home. Believe me, there was no line of gay nudists standing at the velvet rope into that somber club.

It's doubtful any present-day GDR citizen would own his own computer. You certainly would not enjoy unfettered access to the internet. The Stasi would be up your ass within minutes of attempting to use an unauthorised, non-communist search engine.

Not that you would be enthusiastic about using any device manufactured there. Poor performance pales in comparison to the perils imposed by East German gadgets--electrocution, mutilation, and suffocation are all documented hazards of East German toasters.

You think anybody dared aspire to some cool Swedish toaster? Just one that didn't kill them would have been nice.