I've been taking a class at my college about divided Germany, going from the end of World War 2 to the reunification of Germany. So far, most of the class (as well as most other students' knowledge of it) focuses on the successes of the West Germany economic system and the failures of the East German's command economy. While history does seem to favor the West, and I have no doubt given hindsight which "did it better", I also know that the nuances and complicated matter of history mean that it couldn't be that black and white. So, getting to my question: what things was the economic system of East Germany able to do better than the West? And what shortcomings did the West German system have? I hope this question is clear enough!
Well, between 1968 and 1988, East German athletes won a total of 409 Olympic medals at the Summer Games and 110 at the Winter Games. West Germany won 204 Summer Games medals and 39 Winter Games medals. Twice the medal count, when West Germany had four times the population.
The answer that springs immediately to mind for many is doping, and the East Germans absolutely relied heavily on a systematic doping regime for its athletes. This was just part of the regime's focus on sport as a cost-effective way to gain prestige and cement a separate East German identity. (The entangled questions of East German acceptance of nudism and how all of this descends from Nazi ideas of the physical ideal, I'll leave to a specialist.) Physical fitness was a large part of the curriculum in East Germany, which started with compulsory (and heavily ideological) preschool. Students were regularly assessed for athletic potential, and promising children were pulled out of school at an early age for rigorous training. (Another question I'll leave for a specialist is the parallel between this and the other various Communist sports programs, as well as how this model has evolved in modern-day Russia and China.)
is your question anchored on a premise of fact that communism failed and West Germany adsorbed and exploited the East? or is this a hypothetical?