This film documents the East Germans’ criticism of West German capitalism and the country's free market economy. Here, the West Germans are portrayed as being somewhat oppressed, their landlords having the freedom to increase rents and cancel housing contracts at will (a result of a law known as the “Lücke Plan”).

A prime example of a propaganda film, On Both Sides depicts the East Germans as a relatively blessed people, utterly content with their fair, corruption-free system.