As a us citizen I have been repeatedly told that life is East Germany was terrible during the cold war. It's there truth to this or is it propaganda?

Modified from an earlier answer of mine

One of the problems with evaluating quality of life is what exactly is the basis of comparison. It is perhaps inevitable that quality of life in the GDR begged comparison to that of the FRG, but that itself can be a problematic juxtaposition. As with many questions on AH, the answer to comparing the living conditions between the two Germanys is that "it depends." Not only do comparisons of quality of life and individual comforts vary by decade, but also that the metrics for quality of life could be quite variable as well. The FRG citizenry tended to work longer hours and FRG social services were less extensive than the GDR, but the average FRG worker enjoyed far more material comforts under capitalism than their GDR counterpart. In the realm of leisure, the GDR's worker's state meant that vacations were a natural right of workers, but state-sponsored leisure were much more restricted and underfunded than the "free-style" leisure of the FRG. As this indicates, there are no easy answers to the question of quality of life and it is important to keep in mind that comparisons are quite difficult because the economic and sociopolitical environments were quite different.

Generally speaking, the GDR's economy did not grow as fast as the the West and the planned economy was deficient in providing for the needs of its citizenry. Part of the problem was the legacy of the occupation. In contrast to the Western zone of occupation, the Soviet military government was quite brutal in extracting economic concessions from their German zone. In some cases the Soviets ripped out whole industrial plant straight from its foundations and shipped it back into the USSR between c.1945-48. While there were some in the USSR's state hierarchy who recognized that this was counterproductive and it is possible that if the Soviets had recognized that German division was not a temporary affair, they might have acted differently. But when the GDR came into being, it had to cope with the legacy of damaged infrastructure and an economic handicap. In contrast, the Western zones' occupiers toyed with industrial dismantling, but more realistic economic policies prevailed.

But not all of the problems of the GDR can be laid at the feet of the Soviets. There was a lot of self-inflicted damage done by the ruling SED party whose economic policies favored heavy industry and a tightly controlled command economy. The SED General Secretary Water Ulbricht 1950s plan Aufbau des Sozialismus (construction of socialism) prioritized gigantic industrial plants, often at the expense of light industry or consumer goods, and grand schemes for making the GDR catch up and surpass the West. Not surprisingly, the Aufbau campaign failed as it created more shortages of necessary items like clothing, industrial plant underperformed, and overall most of the GDR's workers bore the brunt of the Aufbau campaign as they were called to work longer hours for less reward. A good many workers elected to vote with their feet and emigrate to the FRG, but a number actually stayed and participated in the 1953 revolt against the regime.

In contrast, the economic life of the early years of the FRG was much more stable. Ludwig Erhard's 1948 currency reform which stabilized inflation and restored some semblance of order to the Western zones' economy. Although many Western commentators and political scientists credited FRG Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle) to the Marshall Plan and its ERP credits, American economic aid was largely tangential to the FRG's persistent rate of economic growth. ERP credits eased bottlenecks in the FRG economy like electricity production, but beneath the rubble of 1945, much of the machinery of the Ruhr and other industrial area remained intact. Moreover, refugees from the GDR and other expellees from Eastern Europe gave the FRG a steady supply of low-level labor who already spoke German and were much easier to integrate into wider society. Much of the industrial plant in the West was well-prepared for the tasks of wider European economic reconstruction. Steel and coal concerns were able to navigate out of the West's brief flirtation with decartelization and provided much of the backbone for Europe's postwar recovery. Bonn's ruling CDU/CSU government, and their liberal FDP allies, were very pro-business in their policies, which further helped economic growth.

This did not necessarily mean that quality of life improved for all FRG workers during the Wirtschaftswunder. Robert Hanes, the US coordinator for the Marshall Plan in Germany reported back to Washington in 1950 that "Germany is flat on its ass." FRG workers had to work much longer hours and unemployment was a serious issue in these so-called "Miracle Years." But the economic growth in the FRG gradually filtered down towards regular consumers and the Aufbau campaign slogan "Produce More—Live Better" seemed more appropriate to the FRG work environment than the GDR's. By the mid-1950s, most FRG citizens enjoyed unprecedented access to more consumer goods like cars and refrigerators. This economic growth that filtered down went a long way to buying Bonn a degree of legitimacy that proved quite enduring throughout the Cold War.

In contrast, the GDR struggled after 1953 to keep pace with its neighbor to the West. Catching up and exceeding both the FRG and 1936 economic levels (the last "good" year of the Third Reich's economy) became a holy grail for the SED that gradually morphed into an albatross around its neck. Only by 1955 did production of some foodstuffs reach the vaunted 1936 levels, and even then rationing and shortages remained in place for items like meat or butter. Internal GDR calculations in the 1950s put the price of textiles and other clothing at twice the 1936 levels.

These shortages, coupled with a very restrictive political environment contributed to the 1953 Revolt that started in East Berlin and mushroomed. Strikes over longer hours for little to show for it soon ballooned into other grievances that were eventually crushed by GDR Volkspolizei and Soviet tanks. More serious to the long-term viability of the peasant and workers' state was the hemorrhaging of individuals in the late 1940s and 1950s to the FRG. Republikflucht as it became known, emerged as one of the main symbols of the early Cold War as a propaganda tool and both the US and FRG governments were more than willing to capitalize on a vision of "Red tyranny" to legitimize their Cold War positions.

Yet Republikflucht was a very complex phenomenon and not one that could be simply reduced to an escape from tyranny. Although political reasons were a prominent push factor in emigration, there were substantial pull factors that did not originate in the GDR system. As the postwar period normalized, families divided by the chaos of the war could find themselves split apart by the Iron Curtain. It was not unknown for some GDR emigrants to move to the FRG to take care of an aging relative or the reverse with FRG relatives being the only ones available. The family dynamic sometimes worked from FRG to GDR, but the growth in the FRG economy made the East to West migration more attractive. The vibrant FRG economy also played a significant pull factor as West German firms soon found themselves in need of skilled and semi-skilled workers at the lower tiers of the Wirtschaftswunder economy. One of the understudied aspects of Republikflucht is how FRG businesses engaged in unofficial recruiting drives in the GDR. The relative openness of the inner-German border and West Berlin also led to a phenomena known as Grenzgänger (border crosser) in which GDR citizens would cross the border for a season or part of a day and work in the FRG. Bonn was initially quite reluctant to accept GDR refugees at first, fearing that it would be an additional strain, but soon reversed course and offered a degree of incentives for would-be migrants. Yet, Bonn's incentives were no guarantee of a new life in the FRG and approximately half of the West to East migration during the heyday of Republikflucht consisted of former asylum seekers who were unable to adjust to life in the capitalist West.

In spite of these complexities, Republikflucht created a real demographic crisis for the GDR in the delicate period after the 1953 Revolt and the readjustment to the Aufbau campaign. Emigration not only undermined propaganda claims of the SED, but also denuded GDR firms and important sectors like medicine of skilled personnel. Domestically, the threat of Republikflucht gave GDR workers a ever to act against the SED in the post-1953 milieu. The SED's solution to this problem was to cu the Gordian knot by erecting the Antifaschistischer Schutzwall (Anti-fascist Protection Wall, aka the Berlin Wall) and significantly tightening up the inner-German border. This solution was a public relations nightmare for the GDR and it certainly gave more grist for Western propaganda, but it did work in ending Republikflucht and this demographic crisis. Emigration slowed to a trickle as would-be emigrants now had to deal exclusively with the state or take the risk of crossing the militarized border. The SED's criminalization of unauthorized Republikflucht could extend to immediate families, so leaving the GDR by this route meant having to go to extreme measures to get everyone out, such as the famous Strelzyk and Wetzel families who escaped via a homemade hot-air balloon in 1979.