>>209955947The GDR was basically a like a proto-Prussia already. It punched heavily above its weight militarily. The people wore passed down clothes, were quartered like soldiers, were extremely communal, while the state operated the largest civilian mass surveillance up until that point, almost every person knew how to repair every tool and vehicle they produced, all men were able to serve militarily, all women industrially trained, could have been more or less self sufficient, were very nationalist but in an aesthetically pleasing way, produced some very interesting authors in spite of massive medial censorship and censorship of expression, which can't be boiled down to state bad, socialism bad, capitalism good like leftist western authors or typical post war german tropes, but actually in a sense continued a German artistic tradition from before the world wars.
Eastern Germany was almost exclusively made up of former Prussian constituencies. Do you think you can remove these people, the people of the Mark from the Prussian spirit? They reproduced it in spite of totalitarian socialism and foreign rule!