Begrüßungsgeld or “welcome money” was a long-standing policy intended to put a little something into the hands of the few East Germans who managed to depart the GDR prior to the fall of the Wall, typically with little to their names. As millions suddenly crossed over en masse, an unprecedented multi-billion Deutschmark spending spree was unleashed throughout the final weeks of 1989. Citizens of the communist east, accustomed to shortages, austerity and limited choice were abruptly launched into the capitalist west in all of its glittering consumerist, materialist glory, clutching the first true spending money most of them had ever had.

Thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, BBC Radio 4’s Welcome Money meets a variety of former “Ossis”, as East Germans were known, to ask them about the sometimes surprising ways in which they spent this unexpected windfall from the west, and to find out what these purchases and indeed the money itself meant in the grand scheme of their lives, on the long journey from division through reunification to the Germany of today. Here’s a taster of four of their stories…