[ben]

In most overseas territories colonized, occupied or influenced by other powers, the TV system (and sometimes the AC mains) adopted was usually a variant of that used back in the 'mother country' - Japan, Sth Korea and parts of America had NTSC, parts of North Africa and America and the likes of Polynesia under the French got SECAM, large parts of Eastern Europe got SECAM after the USSR, parts of southern Africa, India and Australia got PAL. So when East Germany fell to the west, the system of the surviving German state (PAL B/G) was installed, along with its currecy and legal system. The pattern was soon followed by the other eastern block states. Since most of Western Europe already used a variant of PAL, that was the system that got used. And let's not forget the economic opportunity in the change from SECAM to PAL, there was then a newly made captive market for new PAL TV sets...