In message , at 18:18:24 on
Thu, 9 May 2013, Basil Jet remarked:
East Berlin was similar. If you could see it from the Wall, it was
luxurious, further away quite different.

How did they stand to gain from conning the West Germans? And since any
West German could get a visa to visit the east, knowledge of the
charade must have been common in the West.

I don't know the answer to your questions, just reporting what was there
on the ground.
--
Roland Perry