Oh yes, these were one of the former East Germany's best exports.  They were looked down on, back in the day, because they were cheap.  But they were only cheap because of the currency exchange rate.  Look carefully and you can see the German engineers ingenious work-arounds for shortage of materials behind the Iron Curtain.  And everyone forgot that Erika were in fact a very old typewriter company, dating back to the pioneer period.  Yes, they are a good, if rather basic, machine.