#11: East Germany / German Democratic Republic (1949–1990)
East Germany was the Cold War made concrete, barbed wire, and paperwork. Created in the Soviet occupation zone after World War II, the German Democratic Republic became a socialist state separated from West Germany by ideology, surveillance, and eventually the Berlin Wall. When the Wall fell in 1989, the old system unraveled fast. In 1990, East Germany was absorbed into reunified Germany. The state vanished, but its psychological geography did not disappear so neatly.
