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Another fun fact: in East Germany, the decision to censor government data on pollution was one of the key motivators for the rise of an independent environmental movement, which was later crucial to the fall of the SED in 1989.
Under state socialism, unrestricted industrial pollution was a huge source of popular discontent. By the fall of the GDR the city of Bitterfeld had the worst air quality in Europe due to its local chemical plants.
In order to compete with West German output, the GDR began a program of converting cheap brown coal into gasoline in the 1980s to deal with shortages due to Soviet economic decline. As one would guess, it is an incredibly toxic process and highly damaging to the environment
