That part of germany still exists. Its just not called DDR anymore.
The story + point was that neither of them liked the regime, to the point of leaving their homes and they gave more oposition to those regimes than most people in the west did, but both people felt patriotic towards their home and the people they knew, and were not ready to let some guy who nothing about it attack people that my mom and my friend knew with their generalizations and prejudices. Its normal behavior, in my opinion.
It was an analogy to dissidents (gaians) who may disagree on a certain policy of a government, but it doesnt mean that those dissidents see the whole country and every aspect of it as their enemy. (kinda like people who dont like Obama or who dont like Bush dont necessarily consider all the USA their enemy, or like Bin Laden probably doenst consider all of Saudi ARabia his enemy)