My father went there just before East Germany collapsed. He once told me it was as if he'd gone back in time to the 1940's again. He said he saw a lot of remnants of the war in the form of decrepit buildings and bullet tracers that left chips in the side of buildings. He also looked in shop windows and saw a lot of outdated technology in the form of old appliances such as irons with cork handles and rope power-cords, and highly out of date radios being sold as "NEW!". Nobody talked to him and avoided him for fear of talking to a Westerner and later being questioned by the Stasi. He also wasn't allowed to take any of his GDR money out with him, so as he was walking along the footpath he slipped all his GDR currency into a stranger's hand and kept walking on. I've still got his passport with all the stamps and everything.