I am reading up on this on the internet. When I was growing up, I always knew the DDR Germany and FRG Germany. The East Germans used to get more medals than the West Germans in the Olympics.
My Dad had a Diplomat (from Pakistan) friend in Qatar in the early 1980s and he was posted as Ambassador to East Germany, he was based in East Berlin, but his kids studied in West Berlin.
I always wondered, people who lived in West Berlin during the cold war, they were surrounded by East Germany, cut off from the rest of Germany. How did the locals manage travelling to the West? For example, you wanted to go for a drive in the countryside and have a picnic by the lake or visit another city to see friends but you couldn’t because you would be crossing into DDR Germany. It must have been like living in a goldfish bowl or bubble in West Berlin.
There were official travel corridors. There’s more information here:
My wife’s grandparents were in the East and they were able to visit her in the West once they had retired but my wife’s father was an American airforce pilot and the US authorities forbade her from visiting the East as there was a risk that she might be held by the East German authorities.
I think the whole situation was largely messed up. Aside from anything else, the West Berlin football clubs had practically no away fans as it was too much hassle.