Funny trivia about the NVA: when the East German regime collapsed, Westerners discovered that, in the 1970s, the GDR government had created a decoration called "Field Marshal Blücher", in memory of the victor of the Battle of Leipzig in 1813. This decoration could only be awarded to an NVA general officer who had commanded during combats of an eventual war against NATO forces.
This reminds me of two ways in which communist Poland and East Germany could be compared. Both my history teacher and parents said that 1. Personal Freedom In Poland (after Stalin's death in 1953), you could actually largely do whatever you wanted. You were fairly free, anonymous and the state did not interfere that much into your life. There was propaganda, but it was weak and bearable, nobody believed in it. Many people disobeyed the state in countless ways and managed to get away with that. You could live your life, just sometimes made impressions of a good citizen. That all could change if you openly protested against the Party. Then you would have problems, but only then. In East Germany, repressions were high. There was invigilation and the "Big Brother" was watching. You had to follow the law strictly and serve the Party or had huge problems. There was strong propaganda. The Stasi had files on you and controlled everything strictly. A good example is religion. In Poland, Catholic Church had to remain, it was too strong and people remained religious. Whereas former GDR is largely non-religous today, contrary to former West Germany. I think that these differences came from Slavic and Germanic mentalities. Germans just like the rules much more, whereas Slavs have this gene of disobedience and doing just what you want. It might also be that East Germany was in fact Red Prussia, and we all know about their discipline 2. Quality of life Whilst I think both of our nations are hard-working, East Germans enjoyed a significantly higher quality of life in general. For instance, their blocs of flats were actually pretty nice whereas ours are not significantly better than Soviet Khruschovka. I don't know if it's because of WW2 or that we were Sovietised more or what. But whenever Poles would visit East Germany, they would use an opportunity to buy some clothes, which were much better from what was available in Poland. My family was no exception Now, there comes a good question which country was better to live
