Given that the National People's Army was very well-equipped and rated very highly by NATO analysts, what exactly happened to the weapons and equipment (I assume there were millions of weapons, ammunition, uniforms, etc.) after the GDR was absorbed into the German Federal Republic?
As an aside, does anybody have any recommendations for documentary films on the NVA or GDR in general?
A lot of it was sold off as part of the Bundeswehr's great peace dividend fire sale. The impression I have gotten is that the German reunification, particularly for the military, was viewed by the West Germans almost like the acquisition of an underperforming company than the reunification of equals. The Bundeswehr had no need for oodles of NVA equipment, since they were already downsizing and none of it was NATO-compatible anyway, so much of it was sold. This 1992 Washington Post article gives a nice little summary of the situation: the sale of old NVA equipment was a nice little budgetary windfall for the newly reunified Germany.
The only notable item I'm aware of being kept were some MiG-29 fighter aircraft, which NATO were quite keen to examine. Early trials indicated that, with its decent kinematics & speed, plus the pairing of a highly capable heads-up display with high-off-boresight R-73 infrared-seeking missiles (NATO name AA-11 ARCHER), it would have been a very tough customer in close-range dogfights with NATO fighters in the 80s and 90s. High-off-boresight means, for context, that it can be launched at a significant angle from the direction of the aircraft's nose.