This is the image in question.
From what I understood, most communist Eastern Bloc governments took hardline atheist / irreligious stances, and often prided themselves on valuing "science and reason" over "superstition." If that was the case, how come there's a Zodiac on a mural depicting East German life? Did it perhaps represent something else than astrology?
Both the top and bottom images are copies of a famous images of the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems, from the Celestial Atlas of Andreas Cellarius (1660). So I would suspect this is not a reference to the Zodiac qua Zodiac, but a reference to Copernicanism and what it stands for (triumph of science, anti-religion, progress from one theory to another — all standard tropes in both Communist and Capitalist nations). That it is positioned between a classroom (with other science iconography, like the Pythagorean theorem) and a pair with an atom and a dove, seems to support that this is part of an imagery of science, education, and progress. This is fitting given its location on the building of the education department.
Not a historians, but grew up there. But this type of art brings back bad memories. I'm glad a new generation can look at this courious now.
Zodiacs were known, but not used a lot. In my experience back them, there were decorativ things with zodiacs, like chain pendants. But thei were purchased for the value of the gold/silver, in case we needed "war currency".
