Life in east Germany 1980

When initially split in 1949 West Berlin was very relaxed in regards to the border and censorship, Citizens were allowed to openly travel in and out of East and West Berlin and exchange goods and messages.

With the rise and success of capitalism in the West, The communist east slowly introduced more and more restrictions regarding the exchanging of goods and visitation. It was decided to introduce a wall when it was discovered more and more people were migrating from the East to West.

Because of the immense success of capitalism in the West, Eastern Berlin implemented much more aggressive censorship which lead to the eventual complete ban of Western products, Media and news.

These new restrictions made life in East Berlin a lot more harder than that of the West.

Private life in east Germany was very restricted due to the Stasi who were the city's secret police. The Stasi were constantly spying on the people of West Berlin to find any eastern spies or talk of escape or revolution.

Along with a restricted private life the citizens of West Berlin were also restricted to what they could wear with jeans being banned as they were considered a symbol of eastern capitalistic success.

Censorship was also heavily forced upon western citizens as everything from what they could wear to what they could listen to in regards to music was heavily restricted. Music was heavily restricted and monitored to be pro communist party. Even with how little there was all media was also monitored and policed to be pro communism and only show the greater things of life in the East.

Book's were also heavily policed as they promoted creative thinking and carried a lot of western creative capitalistic ideas. A list of books banned by the state were released and anyone found with the books would be punished with prison sentences