I wish more people wrote about this experience because I think the East German experience is very important to be better known.

As someone interested in how society affects people, economics, capitalism, socialism etc the German Unification is one of the biggest social experiments of all time. And probably a big cautionary tale of what NOT to do. But I don't feel many want to take this as a lesson.

I am very much a believer in gradualism. That bad things happen when change is too abrupt. East Germany as well as the USSR should have had a much longer transition period. It is like with climate change. The planet handles climate change just fine, as long as that change is not abrupt. That is a message I see often lost. People go "But climate has changed all through Earth history!" Sure but not abrupt.

I didn't actually know that Zeiss was in East Germany. I got to lookup and read the company history now.

Did you ever talk to parents or relatives about how what they felt about the transition? Or was it too mentally painful for people to want to talk about?

I read about Ossi and Wessi culture. Do you identify as an Ossi today or just German? I read stories about people who identify as Ossi despite never having lived in the DDR. They got born afterwards, but the values, preferences etc carry through the generations. And even if you don't want to identify like that, other people may make you feel that way. You do a thing in a particular way and they go "Oh he is an Ossi, or that is how Ossis do it!"

I was once trying to gain an understanding of the challenges black Americans face, and got interested in looking at the Ossi experience because it deals with people who don't look different from the others and cannot be claimed to have any different DNA. Yet, they face discrimination. We have some of that in Norway with Northern Norwegians and Sami.

They don't really look any different but can certainly face discrimination in various ways such as for renting an apparent, job application etc. Not so much more today, but certainly in the 1960s.