[rab60bit]

In my line of business I never managed Berlin (which of course was isolated sort of in the middle of the GDR) in the period prior to the wall coming down but did make an eerie visit one afternoon to the border near Kassel at the invitation of my West German host (just about as far west as the GDR extended in those days) - shiver!!
I did however spend a lot of time in Poland pre-glasnost and if there was anywhere as bad as East Berlin it was Warsaw or Lodz although the Polish regime was a little more benevolent. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures (for obvious reasons) since I valued my ability to be able to move around the country relatively freely - but boy was that place backward, goodish utility inter-city train service but by road once out of the urban areas it was like being back in the late 1800's, barely a car (or even many trucks) to be seen and transport either tractors or horse drawn carts of a perculiar truncated inverted wedge shape section; even the small towns had just dirt roads running through them and drab was the new colour, dreary the latest fashion for everything but vodka and cigarettes were always in plentiful supply.
I don't know how joe schmo managed to exist but it was a great illustration of how communism simply didn't/couldn't work - dreadful place then, what a difference now.