In 1985 I went through Check Point Charlie into East Berlin and ended up drinking at a foreign currency only bar next to a Russian monument to themselves. I went to what I thought was the men's room to find an old woman in there sitting on a chair.
She nodded to me and tore off a piece of paper from the roll she had in her hands. It was a coarse gray paper, not unlike what wasps make for their hives. So is my story about Communism and toilet paper. For all you younger people, I lived this.
It sounds like what the French army was using in the 1980s.
I used to have some to show people, and probably still have it stored away somewhere.
They must have exported that stuff to West Germany at the time. In 1986, I visited West Germany for about six weeks. The train system there had TP on the trains that was grey and had bits of actual wood embedded in the paper. I guess the great difference was that I could use as much as needed, rather than use the amount given to me by the staff.
On a lark, I tore off a single piece and brought it home as proof to my story of wood-shaving laced TP.