Hmmm. I visited East Berlin in either ‘61 or ‘62 and they didn’t influence me. :>} Well they did in a way since I witnessed the “wall” and the decay and depression on the east side of the wall. Dismal sight with plenty of debris still scattered from WW II.
It was still there when the Wall came down. I was in Berlin in 2000 and again 2001. In the former ‘East’ there were still bullet holes in walls, although you could see where they ad been patched in places.............