Albert, 12th Prince of Thurn and Taxis

What people wore

The practical Dederon smock apron

Many women in the GDR wore colorful sleeveless smock aprons made from Dederon, a robust and quick-drying synthetic polyamide fiber, for housework and in various workplaces.

Getting around

Drastic reduction in long-distance travel time

For comparison, the travel time from Abensberg to Berlin by train in 1974 was 9 hours and 27 minutes, significantly faster than the 19th-century horse-drawn carriage time of nearly 72 hours.

At the table

Coffee as a luxury in East Germany

In East Germany, coffee was a rare luxury item, and a one-kilogram package of Rondo coffee cost 70 marks in the 1980s. People sometimes stretched their supply by mixing it with barley or sugar beet pulp, a mixture nicknamed Erich's Coronation.

Music

The Mundorgel songbook ritual

For many young people in the 1970s and 1980s, the Mundorgel, a small red book of folk songs, was an essential companion during church youth trips, campfires, and hikes. Its distribution was a ritual, with booklets often collected back after use to be reused by others.

Daily life

Affordable school lunches in the GDR

Eighty-five percent of children received a warm lunch at school, with parents typically paying 50 pfennigs per meal. Popular choices included Spirelli pasta with tomato sauce and Jagdwurst.

What it cost

Food subsidies in East Germany

The East German state heavily subsidized daily necessities, spending 33 billion Mark on food subsidies in 1989 alone to keep prices low.