A Polish, Czech, Hungarian etc. citizen had no Western part of her homeland just a few miles away to dream of and had no daily Western TV in her own language (except in and around Dresden, the "valley of the ignorants") to show a diferent way of living. That made it more difficult for the GDR oligarchy to keep control and therefore they even had to control whether the TV antennas were perhaps showing into the wrong direction.

On the other hand, each bit of humanity like family reunions were paid for in hard cash and so the GDR was economically better off than the other countries behind the curtain.

A GDR joke tells the difference: A Polish heading West and a GDR dog heading East meet on the bridge over the Oder (the border river). The GDR dog asks: "What are you coming for to the GDR?" The Polish dog: "I haven't had any meat since more than a year and I yearn for a piece of meat. But you have enough meat to eat, brother, so why do you want to come to Poland?" "Just for barking one time before I die."

Wolfgang