> I don’t believe that the article is saying that the situation was better during DDR time. It was actually way better during DDR time, a whole lot of stuff wa

> I don’t believe that the article is saying that the situation was better during DDR time. It was actually way better during DDR time, a whole lot of stuff was manufactured there was then sold in the West trough catalog order. Didn't happen out of anywhere that even companies like IKEA had stuff manufactured there [0], back then the DDR was a bit what China is nowadays to the Western world. Sadly a lot of those industries were simply sold off and liquidated, sending millions of people into unemployment, by the Treuhandanstalt [1]. With nobody really investing much to replace these lost jobs, only plenty of money for infrastructure trough the Soli. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/16/ikea-regrets-forced-labour-germany https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/nov/16/ikea-regret... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treuhandanstalt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treuhandanstalt