Short answers, pulled from the story.
The German Democratic Republic officially came into existence on the 7th of October 1949 within the Soviet occupation zone. This new state emerged from a landscape scarred by World War II and divided among four Allied powers.
At the end of the GDR in 1990 there were approximately 109,000 still-active informants at every grade. These individuals spied on people more directly and reported to Stasi handlers from all walks of life.
In 1976 the average annual growth of the GDP was 5 percent making the East German economy the richest in all of the Soviet Bloc until reunification in 1990. By 1985 collective state enterprises earned 97% of the net national income.
On the night of the 12th of August 1961 East German soldiers began erecting the Berlin Wall to stop emigration. Many people attempting to flee were killed by border guards or booby traps such as landmines.
On the 9th of November 1989 a few sections of the Berlin Wall were opened resulting in thousands of East Germans crossing freely into West Berlin for the first time in nearly 30 years. The population declined by three million people throughout its forty-one year history from 19 million in 1948 to 16 million in 1990.