before letting you out via the gift store full of DDR nostalgia to buy

Holy shit you're not kidding

I went to check their online shop and it is entirely the kind of merch you'd expect to see in a pro socialist shop: plenty of Hero of Labour merch, Marx and Lenin stuff, a faux DDR passport notebook, that kinda stuff. There's a few things that border on either being actual anticommunism or possibly parody (like a sign saying "No Goods Today" in German), but none of it looks like it's meant to be ironic

Adding on as I look at more things: they sell a magnet celebrating the formation of the DDR (Republic Day, October 7th). I'm with you, there's no way this place isn't run by socialists