I was watching a video on the German army mechanization and in this part the lecturer talks about going to the armor school at Munster and singing the Panzerlied with German armor cadets. It sounds like the West German army kept most of the traditions of the old army, even from the Nazi era as long as it wasn't explicitly Nazi. Did the East German army do so as well, or were they more throughly indoctrinated by Soviets to reject German military traditions? Did they retain pre-Nazi German/Prussian traditions? Were their doctrines based on Guderian, Clausewitz etc. or Tukhachevsky and Zhukov?
Just a quick answer, maybe I can expand later in a couple of hours:
The NVA (national people's army) was very much a hybrid of Soviet and Prussian military doctrin. In some circles the NVA is still referred to as Red Prussians (which I find very fitting) Equipment, operative control, etc was obviously mostly Soviet. But the tradition was very, very Prussian. This is demonstrated by several things. Medals were given out that referred to Prussian generals like the Blücher-Order for valor in times war, the Theodor Körner or the Scharnhorst-Order. Even though most militaristic music (like the wonderful Prussian's Gloria) became unacceptable Beethoven's Yorckscher Marsch was very widely played.
What Blücher, Scharnhorst and Yorck of course have in common is that they fought side by side with Russian troops against Bonaparte. Generally speaking, the NVA drew mostly from two pre-socialist historic movements in Germany - the liberation from the French in 1815 and the Peasant's revolution in the 16th century.
The uniforms looked very much like Wehrmacht Uniforms (and probably partly were), the widely used helmets M54 and M56 were actually based on a Wehrmacht prototype (M45). A lot of the officers where former Wehrmacht officers, as "proper" German socialists with fighting experience where rare. One other small thing the NVA took from Prussian tradition (and the Hitler Youth!) was the Ehrendolch
One of the most interesting cases in military tradition is the song Wir sind des Geyers schwarzer Haufen - literally "We are Geyer's black mob". A song from the peasants rebellion, it was both used by the SS and the NVA. It's also super catchy.
Literature:
Wenzke Ulbrichts Soldaten: Die Nationale Volksarmee 1956 bis 1971
Kunath Zur Geschichte der Militärmusik in der NVA
