Apologies for the vague question but... I've just been on a holiday to Berlin, and I visited DDR museum and other East Germany tourist sites. The life in East Germany under SED is represented everywhere in overwhelmingly negative light, and I remember that's how the period was taught in school as well. Emphasis was on the lack of intellectual freedom, the Berlin Wall, lack of luxury goods, the military service etc.. But, now and there I could also find little underplayed facts such as there was no hunger or extremy poverty, no unemployment to speak of etc, and I also came across this Der Spiegel poll that slight majority of Germans saw more good than bad things in DDR. So, is the way I've learnt about DDR at school maybe just very biased and 'anti-communist'? I can understand that policies such as travel restrictions were unpopular but, were people generally really all that miserable under DDR?