In the mid-1970s, someone in Pullach had the startling idea of intelligence gathering and evaluating political jokes about "over there". Thus, at the end of 1977, the BND in Pullach launched the secret operation "GDR joke", whereby BND agents had to collect and evaluate political jokes in the GDR. Among other things, the staff interviewed refugees and displaced persons from the GDR in the emergency accommodation camps of the FRG. So-called "train investigators" - mostly middle-aged women - listened to their fellow passengers in seemingly harmless chats. Additionally, West German citizens, who received visitors from the GDR or were themselves on kinship visits in the east, were asked for jokes. Overall, the BND succeeded in discovering thousands of GDR jokes within 14 years. Of these, 657 reached the office of the Federal Chancellor on secret service routes. Examples Country and politics Which three great nations in the world begin with "U"? — USA, USSR, and oUr GDR. (German: Was sind die drei großen Nationen der Welt, beginnend mit "U"? USA, UdSSR, und unsere DDR. This alludes to how official discourse often used the phrase "our GDR", and also often exaggerated the GDR's world status.) The United States, the Soviet Union and the GDR want to raise the Titanic. The United States wants the jewels presumed to be in the safe, the Soviets are after the state-of-the-art technology, and the GDR – the GDR wants the band that played as it went down. A school teacher asks little Fritzie: "Fritzchen, why are you always speaking of our Soviet brothers? It's Soviet friends." – "Well, you can always choose your friends." Why is toilet paper so rough in the GDR? In order to make every last asshole red. Results for international tonsillectomy competition: USA three minutes, France two minutes, GDR five hours. Explanation: in the GDR one can't open one's mouth, so the doctor had to go in the other way. Eberhard Cohrs had a famous joke "Do you know the difference between capitalism and socialism? Capitalism makes social mistakes ..." – and the audience usually figured out the punchline themselves. Stasi How can you tell that the Stasi has bugged your apartment? – There's a new cabinet in it and a trailer with a generator in the street. (This is an allusion to the primitive state of East German microelectronics.) Honecker and Mielke are discussing their hobbies. Honecker: "I collect (German