Have to say, the East German hockey program has crossed my mind about zero times prior to this post.
They seem to have been one of the ever-present teams bouncing between the ‘A’ and ‘B’ world championships. Considering the era, they fared quite respectably in 1983. Losing 3-0 to the Soviets and 5-2 to a Canadian roster featuring six future Hall of Famers could certainly be worse. Their loss to Sweden was by a single goal. They lost a close game with the West German hosts, but beat Finland.
I feel you also have to remember that Finland was still up and coming, and had another five years of waiting before their first medal in a major tournament. Without having seen a second of East German hockey and just based on a hunch, I feel I’d liken their pretty decent 1983 WC performance to a national team of Austria’s stature making the most out of lowly expectations for an Olympic tournament: beating the team they should beat, keeping it close in losses to the best teams, swallowing a bitter loss to the rival Swiss, but upsetting a team like Slovakia.