West Germany, I also have an Abus lock made there, I realised recently that I bought it in 1983.
I have a knack of hanging on to things.
You're saying the quality of manufactured goods from W. Germany of the past was better than the quality of(East & West together)Germany today ?
The problem these days is that you can have well known traditional marques selling products that they design, and supposedly quality check, but they are actually manufactured elsewhere, so the old "Made in Germany" cachet is no longer what it was.
Back before unification of Germany, it seemed that FRG firms wanted to demonstrate quite clearly the superiority of their goods Vs what came out of the DDR. I would guess some of this was politically orchestrated. Whether it was or not, the consumer benefitted and so 40 years later I still have tools that serve me well even after a tough life.
I knew the importers in Ireland of MZ motorcycles back in those days. Every now and again technicians from Zschopau visited to help with training and new product introduction. They would bemoan the great difficulties that they experienced in getting access to good quality raw materials in their Workers and peasants paradise.
I'm sure there were no such issues across the old "Inner German border".
I try to reserve my German CK screwdrivers, cutters, pliers etc for electrical work, and so for bikes, and living in France at that stage I bought an entire new set of Facom tools (renowned French brand). These were equipped with lovely tactile red and yellow grips and handles, which disintegrated on first contact with any solvent or petrol (gasoline).
Sometimes I would love to go back to the `80s.
