East Germany doesn't romanticize communism, they romanticize a past identity different from their Western brethren, and a sense of "Ostlagie" by "Ossies" is missing things that disappeared after reunification. For a period of around 40 years (1949-90), much of the population was alive to experienced a different way of life, part of Germany's history is cultural regional differences like the majority conservative Catholicism in Bavaria, for example, which is compatible with Austria (an ethnic but not nationally German country) vs the majority Protestant "Low" Germany (Bavaria in the "High" or topographic Alpine region).
And the subject of communism, like the Third Reich, their non-defeat defeat in WW1 and mixed feelings about social democracy, is kinda taboo except when you're in a history museum to learn about differing political ideologies, both centrist and extreme, and the important lesson of having a civilian-ruled moderated democratic system with a right amount of capitalism. But Germans are more open about political discussion than I've noticed in the US when liberals and conservatives try not to engage in politics, religion, morality and ethics issues ... esp. about ecology, ethno-racism, social class disparity and secularism.