Answering machine?
While radio, and later television, were widespread, other forms of communication in the GDR were often lacking technical facilities.
Telephone lines to some areas had not been extended or modernized since before WWII and people could not be provided with their own telephone connection. If people wanted to talk to each other they had to visit and or leave a note at the door if they weren’t home.
The scarcity of telephone lines was not only a problem in the GDR. The author remembers having waited for a phone for several years in the early 1970s in West-Berlin. In the GDR, there was sometimes only one single telephone line in vilages which belonged to the post office or the village shop. But even in Berlin the everday routine never included telephone calls in private life. Necessary phone calls had to be made from work.
The note pad shown was assembled by a carved and laquered wooden plate with a cash register paper roll on top. It is one of several examples of home-made objects in the museum collections.
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Andreas Ludwig, 'Answering machine?', Inventing Europe, http://www.inventingeurope.eu/story/answering-machine
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