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Compare to Japan, then.
by buescher 5y ago
Compare to Japan, then.
- flohofwoe 5y agoJapan had a much better starting position: it was built up by the USA after WW2 similar to the Western European countries, while Eastern Germany was looted by the Soviet Union. Japan had access to the free market, while Eastern Germany had to deal with trade restrictions (especially for "sensitive" technology like computers), and finally Japan had a nearly 10x bigger population than Eastern Germany.
- buescher 5y agoYeah, looting has consequences. The UK did OK - Acorn launched the Archimedes in 1987 (without a parade) - but the rest of Western Europe was never really a personal computer or IC design powerhouse either. Commodore did some assembly in Germany, and I remember being appalled by the large display of obviously horrible Thomson home computers at a department store in Germany in the mid-eighties. The store's buyer must have been out of his or her mind to stock them, or just entranced by the light pen, but apparently they were big in France.
- helge9210 5y ago> while Eastern Germany was looted by the Soviet Union This. All manufacturing capability of USSR was based on equipment looted from Eastern Germany.
- thriftwy 5y agoI had an answer to you but I deleted it, your claim is just too ridiculous. If "all" of USSR capacity were stolen from the East Germany, how did USSR managed to produce all the tanks and planes which caused East Germany to start its sad communist existence?
- sudosysgen 5y agoThe USSR massively outproduced all of the Reich, let alone Germany, much less East Germany. What they did get from East Germany was a lot of R&D, and ok terms of productivity per capita yes there was some "looting".