The shortages of pretty much everything and stasi terror tactics of the 1980s would resemble a “collapsed” state in most western views. It was not as bad as USSR or what we normally think of as a collapsed state (e.g. Haiti of today), but it sure was not even close to the western Germany standard of living. The article also goes on to describe poverty for the main protagonist well into early 2000. While I’m not German, so will likely never truly understand the cultural implications, the partitioning off of the forced soviet state in east Germany was a terrible outcome and had similar dire consequences as what happened in the rest of the eastern bloc.
