The opening of the border had a profound political and psychological effect on the East German public. For many people, the very existence of the GDR, which the SED had justified as the first "Socialist state on German soil", came to be seen as pointless. The state was bankrupt, the economy was collapsing, the political class was discredited, the governing institutions were in chaos and the people were demoralised by the evaporation of the collective assumptions that had underpinned their society for 40 years.