Strikes 'n' Spares Behind The Berlin Wall

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joeekaitis

joeekaitis

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So I bought a DVD of East German stop-motion puppet cartoons and the trailers at the end of the DVD include one for the live-action series "Clown Ferdinand". A few seconds of the trailer smacked me right in my All-American eyeballs, notably the obligatory "tossing a bowling ball down the alley" gag.

Yes, those are AMF pinsetters in this mid- to late-20th Century bowling alley somewhere in the German Democratic Republic. The stark white paint job and absence of advertising most likely means it's a state-run establishment.

So, even during the most frigid years of the Cold War, were we actively trading with East Germany?

Your thoughts, world?[this post was last edited: 12/16/2015-10:12]

joeekaitis-2015121609203605361_1.png
 
I doubt there was any ban on trading non-military or otherwise sensitive technology. Remember the big wheat sales we made to the Soviet Union when their crops failed in the Seventies? It was more a lack of hard currency that kept them from buying a lot of things, along with import restrictions on industries they wanted to protect, such as cars.
 
A lot of BOL stuff offered as store brands in West German department stores and mail order catalogs was actually from East Germany, but most of us (in the West) weren`t aware of it back then.
Things like furniture, small appliances even clothes.
Most of their products were only competitive because of a very attractive price tag they had in the West, but were expensive to buy for the East German consumer as far as I know.
I think it`s also worth to mention that despite of rather non innovative products, planned obsolenscence was certainly no part of their economy.
 

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