Zersetzung

What is “Zersetzung?”

The East German Ministry for State Security, or “Stasi” as it is most commonly known, did far more than just bug homes and arrest political dissidents. Indeed, throughout the 1970s and 80s, under Erich Honeckerʼs state leadership, the Stasi and its vast network of unofficial collaborators (henceforth referred to “IMs,” a contraction of the German “Inofizieller Mitarbeiter”) would adopt much more insidious measures to destabilise and disembolden potential “enemies of the state.” These measures were, in fact, so insidious, that many victims of so-called “Zersetzung” operations would only uncover the true extent of the Stasiʼs interference after Reunification, when Stasi records became available to the public.

Prior to Ulbrichtʼs departure from East Germanyʼs leadership in 1971 due to failing health, the Stasi had been known for its ruthless and oftentimes brutal treatment of prisoners and those suspected of harbouring an anti-state ideology. Honecker, however, aimed to establish the GDR as an internationally-recognised nation – for this end, East Germany would have to (ostensibly) adhere to the United Nationsʼ principles. In 1972, the GDR signed the Basic Treaty with West Germany, which called for a greater emphasis on human rights, and the Helsinki Accord in 1975. In line with the stipulations of these treaties, the SED government was seen to reduce the number of political incarcerations in the GDR, though this didnʼt necessarily mean an increased leniency towards political dissenters…

21st December 1972, signing of the Basic Treaty between FRG and GDR

Why Zersetzung?

Thus, the idea for Zersetzung came about, The term was first brought into the lexicon by the Nazis, whose “Wehrkraftzersetzung” was a multifaceted term denoting any crime undermining – or “decaying,” which the word literally translates to – the military´s strength, punishable by death. For the Stasi, however, Zersetzung was not an overt criminal penalty – indeed, Honecker intended to circumvent the penal code as best as he could. Instead, Zersetzung incorporated elements of operational psychology to destroy a potential dissident on a personal, psychological level – it was a preventative measure, not a punishment for those who had already committed “crimes” against the SED government. On Zersetzung, British journalist Luke Harding writes, “The security serviceʼs goal was to use Zersetzung to “switch off” regime opponents. After months and even years of Zersetzung a victim’s domestic problems grew so large, so debilitating, and so psychologically burdensome that they would lose the will to struggle against the East German state. Best of all, the Stasi’s role in the victim’s personal misfortunes remained tantalisingly hidden. The Stasi operations were carried out in complete operational secrecy. The service acted like an unseen and malevolent god, manipulating the destinies of its victims.”

How was Zersetzung carried out?

Much like a “malevolent god,” the Stasi utilised its omniscience – that is to say, its huge network of IMs, to collect the personal information required for Zersetzung to be truly effective. To really get into a personʼs head, the IM would take particular note of personal insecurities, such as homosexuality, alcoholism, pornography addictions – or secrets with the potential to destroy oneʼs home life, often extra-marital affairs. Yet, whilst this espionage was highly effective, the Stasi often constructed fake information or set up situations to lure a victim into, for instance, adultery. Anonymous letters, dating agency flyers, doctored photographs, telephone calls and telegrams were all methods employed during Zersetzung operations to spark tension within the home, leaving “dissidents” too embroiled in personal scandal to harm the State on any level.

Another aspect of Zersetzung which Harding brings up is its incredibly covert, “tantalisingly hidden” nature – this really being the linchpin in the operationʼs effectiveness. Even if a person suspected the Stasiʼs involvement in their personal misfortune, how could they prove it? Certainly, anyone attempting to absolve themselves of blame for an affair by claiming photo evidence was created by the Stasi, or that their tyres were slashed by the Stasi, or that the Stasi had entered their apartment and changed the time their alarm clock was supposed to go off, would appear to lack responsibility for their actions at best, or seem completely mad, at worst. Coupled with a victimʼs own belief that they may indeed be suffering from psychosis, this dynamic would further isolate a victim from their peers. This, of course, played right into the Stasiʼs hands.

In actual fact, the Stasi and its network of IMs was very much to blame for these domestic disturbances, with an average of three IMs allocated to each victim. In the Stasi college of law, students were increasingly taught the principles of operational psychology so as to be adept at damaging victims most effectively on a psychological level – itself, a form of operant conditioning, as the process used positive punishment (simply the idea that repeated punishment for an action will dissuade the punished person from committing the action again,) to deter victims from their State-critical sentiments. A teaching manual of approximately 50 pages was disseminated to students of the law school, detailing these methods.

“Discover love anew!” This pamphlet was sent to homes as part of Zersetzung operations, to make it appear as if the targeted person/their partner had shown interest in a dating agency, creating domestic tension.

Friedenskreis Pankow

A case study illustrating the Stasiʼs use of Zersetzung is to be found in the document entitled “ Zersetzungsmaßnahmen gegen den “Friedenskreis Pankow,” “Zersetzung measures against the Pankow Peace Circle.” In this document, the author/s lays out the aims of their operation and proposes various measures typical of Zersetzung operations for achieving these. The Peace Circle was a Christian-led oppositional group in the Berlin district of Pankow, who would meet to discuss topics such as peace, environmental protection and disarmament. This kind of group was a typical target of Stasi espionage and Zersetzung, amongst:

• Associations of people making collective visa applications for travel abroad
• Artists’ groups critical of the government
• Religious opposition groups
• Youth subculture groups
• Groups supporting the above (human rights and peace organisations, those assisting illegal departure from the GDR, and expatriate and defector movements).

First page of the Zersetzung document kept by the Stasi regarding the Pankow Peace Circle

The Stasi, perceiving the group as a potential threat, intended to “reduce the influence, activities and number of participants,” to “prevent the enemy from building up a state-independent peace movement,” and moreover, to “unsettle the leading figures of the peace circle and neutralise their influence.”  To achieve this end, the document’s author proposes the following – note the instrumental role of IMs in the operation:

• IMs who are argumentative, confrontational and biased will be sent to peace circle debates to ignite heated debate. For this precise operation, the document notes the selection of 25–30 students, divided into approximately six smaller “task forces.” Each task force is to be assigned a leader, who is fed instructions regarding the most inflammatory demeanor and arguments to adopt, having infiltrated the circle. Naturally, as a group rooted in pacifism, the idea that the group might have hostile members would not only put off potential members, but would shake the foundations of the circle, who could no longer trust the intentions of its members.

• The reputation of the circle is to be further damaged by the arrival of a “Jehovahʼs Witness,” who will arrive “to preach his faith.” As part of his reasoning for why members should turn to the religion, he will decry alleged adultery within the group, depravity, and the fact that the members are espousing a polyamorous “free love.” He will allege that a member took inappropriate photos of other members bathing during a Mecklenburg “peace hike,” at which point, he will produce an edited photograph created by the Stasi. This infiltration would leave members questioning their personal safety within the group, with many members asking for clarity from the Superintendent of the Circle, who was, of course, unaware of the accusations. This method would have been especially efficacious for the Stasi – a movement cannot pose any significant threat to a government if its own members do not trust one another.

• To shake the already unstable marriage of one member, the IM Horst Hoffmann will inform the member in a staged “man to man” conversation of an affair he had “heard about” between the member´s wife and another man, rendering him too despondent from his marital woes to contribute meaninfully to the Circle. Here, prior espionage is highlighted as an important facet of Zersetzung – the Stasi knew to target this manʼs marriage specifically, since they had already gathered data regarding a very real affair between the member´s wife and another man. Therefore, adultery was a point of particular contention in the marriage, and the member would have been more likely to believe that his wife had engaged in a second affair, making this “well-meaning memberʼs” conversation all the more devastating.

Olof-Palme-Friedensmarsch and Pilgerweg 1987, organised by the Pankow Peace Circle.

Image credits: http://www.alt-pankow.de/friedenskreis/geschichte.html

These are just a select few stages of the operation, however. If you would like to read the full document, it is available here:

https://www.stasi-mediathek.de/medien/zersetzungsmassnahmen-gegen-den-friedenskreis-pankow/blatt/24/

Thank you for reading!

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The Wall divided German-German societies, particularly in the travel market. West Germans and West Berliners were allowed to travel to almost any country in the world at any time. His home country didn’t care about his travels.

Things were very different in the GDR. Even with a visa, GDR citizens were only allowed to travel to the socialist brother countries. The West was taboo for most people. There were “travel cadres” who had permission to travel to the West, selected by their companies or universities for economic or scientific reasons. But there were only a few of them and some took the opportunity to escape.

On paper, GDR tourism was great. When the state was founded in 1949, the GDR wrote the “right to rest” and “to annual leave against pay” into Article 16 of the constitution for every worker. The “Handbook of the GDR” praised the socialist vacation system as a “great social achievement of the GDR”.

The procurement of resources was typical of the GDR. In 1953, a large number of police officers searched more than 700 private hotels, restaurants and guesthouses on the Baltic coast as part of “Aktion Rose”.

The absurd accusation: the hoteliers were selling “illegally imported Western goods” and working for the “agent headquarters of American imperialism”. At the end of the campaign, 440 owners were simply arrested as agents of the West.

60% of tourism in the GDR was organized by companies and the state. The FDGB vacation service organized around 2 million trips per year. The state travel agency of the GDR was a VEB, and the FDJ had its own youth travel agency from 1975. Anyone between the ages of 16 and 25 could book with Jugendtourist. However, it was known that older people were also taken along if there were still places available. And you had relationships.

In 1989, 34% of overnight stays were accounted for by company facilities, 26% by campsites, 19% by FDGB hotels, 17% by youth recreation facilities and 4% by others.

These official figures are deceptive. There is a lack of overnight stays in private accommodation, which accounted for the majority of overnight stays in the vacation season in places with high tourist traffic. These private tourists repeatedly caused noticeable shortages in the local supply of food and everyday goods in the vacation resorts.

For GDR citizens, worries about their summer vacation began in winter. The order forms for bus trips or for coveted trips abroad to the Eastern Bloc had to be received by the GDR travel agency by a fixed date. Out of 1,000 applications, only about 30 were approved. It was like winning the lottery, paid for with one of the coveted pink “FDGB vacation checks”. Statistically, the applicant only received this FDGB vacation voucher every five years.

Holidaymakers only had to pay a third of the costs themselves, and this also applied to the outward journey on the Reichsbahn. Two weeks full board in the Baltic seaside resort of Boltenhagen cost just 95 marks per person in 1965.

But the tone was strange. The vacation vouchers said “Induction to the FDGB vacation village” and the food was served in “catering points” The social security card had to be presented and sportswear was expressly expected. Many a person had to put up with the boss at a collective lunch. The level of comfort was manageable, the taps dripped, beds squeaked – and every morning the battle for the shared shower began. 10% of the GDR budget was spent on subsidized vacations, but supply never met demand.

Those who wanted to avoid the masses camped; in the end there were more than 500 campsites in the GDR, the largest with up to 5000 pitches. Those who were lucky had a caravan trailer such as the “Klappfix” or the “Campifix”.

The pitches were in great demand and had to be applied for months in advance at the Central Campsite Agency.

Even the socialist brother countries were not easy to travel to as a normal GDR citizen, starting with the foreign currency. The friendly countries were not keen on the GDR currency either. Tens of thousands of citizens queued for hours to apply for travel to Bulgaria, the CSSR or Hungary. If they were successful, they stuffed their Trabbis with food, as officially only a maximum daily rate could be exchanged. In the CSSR, for example, it was only 30 marks. The GDR traveler felt like a second-class holidaymaker when he suddenly met a West German at Lake Balaton.

And of course they wanted to avoid escapes. In 1968, the GDR set up an alternative route through the USSR for travel to the Balkans. You needed a transit visa for this. With this 3-day visa, the borders of the USSR became permeable for individual tourists, which in some cases led to unauthorized trips to the East. When applying for entry, you had to state the exact route and the individual daily destinations. There were areas that were closed to all foreigners for military reasons and you could get lost but also have mishaps and get stuck. Therefore, you had to report to the militia at your destination, who were informed of your arrival in advance. If this did not happen, a search operation was triggered.

Travel to Cuba was possible from 1973, but it was very expensive and almost exclusively reserved for cadres.

The majority of the group trips were made by plane, in exceptional cases by train (e.g. the adventure trip on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Moscow to Vladivostok). The flights always began and ended at the same airport. When abroad, you met a local interpreter, usually an agent of the respective secret service. Who, however, did not cooperate with the GDR tour guide.

The GDR travel agency was actually a branch of the Stasi. Most of the permanent representatives and chief representatives of the travel agency of the GDR and also the honorary tour guides worked as IM or agents of the MfS. The volunteers were paid for the trip, but had to use their vacation time to travel. Wives had to pay in full for the journey. If there were mishaps for which the tour guide was held responsible, he was personally liable for the damage. The GAU was a refugee on a trip abroad.

So it is no wonder that the tour guides constantly put pressure on the travelers. Always queue in alphabetical order and no unwanted contact with foreigners.

When the mass protests shook the GDR system in 1989, many wanted not only more democracy but also something completely unthinkable: “Visa-free to Hawaii!” In 1989, the Society for the German Language chose “freedom to travel” as the word of the year.

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Berlin Disease Control.

Mankind has a short memory. It helps people not to live in constant fear. And the longer it has been since the last case, the less aware we are of the danger.

Epidemics are nothing new, Corona is just the latest in a whole series of mass diseases that hit Germany.

Who remembers the Hong Kong flu epidemic between 1968 and 1970 that killed over a million people worldwide? In the Federal Republic alone, there were around 40,000 deaths. There had already been several pandemics in the 20th century. During the Spanish flu, after World War I, citizens in Western countries were exhorted to stay home, but few obeyed. At the time of the Asian flu and Hong Kong flu, people were limited to getting through the crisis, there was no general curfew. Today, people react much more sensitively. Increased life expectancy may be one of the reasons. .

So pandemics are nothing new, but between 1945 and 1989 there was a peculiarity, diseases and precautions became weapons in the arsenal of propaganda in East and West. Outbreaks in the other Germany were commented on in the media, always referring to the respective state doctrine as the supposed cause.

At the end of March 1962, there was an outbreak of bacterial dysentery in the GDR. By the middle of the last week of March at the latest, it was known that the capital of the GDR had become the scene of the most widespread epidemic to hit the territory of the GDR since the end of the war.

The MfS was alerted, and the search and counterintelligence apparatus of the East Berlin epidemic department went into action. The result was a disaster politically. The cause was butter contaminated with dysentery bacilli that had been sold in four East Berlin districts in the week before last in March.

The disease spread explosively through contact infection. As early as April 1, the capacity of East Berlin’s hospitals was no longer sufficient. Auxiliary hospitals had to be established. In addition to trained staff, students and People’s Police officers were used as caregivers.

It was not until April 4, more than a week after the wave of illness began, that the government broke the silence. It was not until that day that the SED announced the epidemic.

On April 8, an entry and exit ban was imposed on Berlin, but due to lack of control it did not take effect and it was too late anyway. Large parts of the GDR were now affected. The number of people sickened rose to 75,000, and the first fatalities were reported.

Nevertheless, the SED officials did not want to close schools and kindergartens. They did not want to give the Western propagandists – like the “Bild” newspaper, which claimed to have already discovered 100,000 sick people and 40 dead – any more excuses to retaliate for the campaign that had been sparked in East Berlin on the occasion of a West German smallpox outbreak.

Some of the contaminated butter came from the Soviet Union, of course, this was not admitted. Scattered rumors referred to China as the country of origin.

The propaganda machine started up. Largely publicized articles hailed the exemplary performance of physicians in the socialist system.

As the death toll remained low, the diarrhea-stricken Berliners were helped through the crisis by their sense of humor. The joke circulated, “Everything is getting better: East Berlin is the Ruhr.”

For the first time, RIAS and other West Berlin media were able to find something positive about the Berlin Wall. It had reliably kept the epidemic out of West Berlin. And this although it did not have the later dimensions in 1962. In The Wall Museum you can see the installations of that time.

The disease outbreaks in the West provided excellent targets for SED propaganda. Especially since Bonn, for dogmatic reasons, refused help. Willi Stoph, deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers, offered three million vaccine doses to the Federal Republic in 1961 – as a humanitarian gesture for the Ruhr region, which was ravaged by polio; with 42 dead already, the crisis was acute. Adenauer declined. And the SED reported the “no”. The picture was clear; here healthy working people in the socialist state, there dangerous epidemic areas and high disease rates in capitalism.

Shortly before the Wall was built, GDR television warned of imported pathogens from the West. Travelers from the West were even offered free vaccinations.

Even one worked mostly with cover-up.

April 1963, a man in Aschersleben showed smallpox symptoms. It was an African who had been living in the GDR for half a year. Globalization as we know it today, and with it the rapid accessibility of all areas of the world, were not known at the time, certainly not in the isolated GDR.

There had been local outbreaks and deaths in West Germany, but not in East Germany. Smallpox vaccination was compulsory in both parts of Germany. The patient in Aschersleben was isolated, and all contact persons were located. 1,700 people were vaccinated as a precaution.

In the SED media, the action was justified by an outbreak of chickenpox.

The GDR experts waited for a report to the World Health Organization, which was actually required, until the laboratory results were available. After a few days the all-clear came from the laboratory, it was not a smallpox infection.

A few months later, an Interflug crew reported a possible smallpox infection. After landing in Berlin-Schönefeld, a woman was immediately isolated and taken to a clinic. Passengers and crew had to remain in the aircraft. and later taken to a temporary isolation ward. Fortunately, it was a false alarm; it was a strong reaction to the smallpox vaccine. Again, there were no media reports about the background.

MfS reports on the incident showed serious deficiencies in the health care system. There was a lack of a special hospital for disease cases and isolation facilities at airports. A hospital was planned in Berlin-Buch. It remained with the plan

The GDR was lucky when smallpox broke out in Kulmbach, Franconia, in the fall of 1965. A pensioner from the GDR returned home, she was immediately vaccinated again – as were all her contacts in the GDR. There were no contagions in the GDR.

In 1972, there was another case of smallpox in the Federal Republic. The GDR was alarmed, the state security took over. The available vaccine was controlled. Up to 50,000 doses were immediately available, and up to 1.4 million doses within 24 hours. The SED leadership was inoculated. More intensive checks were carried out on those entering the country. And in addition, the GDR established contact with the health authorities of the Federal Republic. The quarantine measures in the Hanover area had worked. More than 600 people in the vicinity of the diseased guest worker were isolated and 65,000 were revaccinated.

The GDR also took action. A woman from Hanover had entered Rostock. She was assessed as a direct contact and placed under strict house arrest. Then the border guards reported that her husband had also entered the country. In the middle of the route, the train to Rostock was stopped, but the MfS people could not locate the wanted man – the MfS border guards had given a false name. Later, the husband was found, and he was also placed under house arrest.

Again, an evaluation took place. Imported vaccination guns had proved necessary. However, there was only one of these per GDR district and, according to the report, they were “already heavily worn in some cases.” Spare parts were scarce, an in-house production “has not succeeded so far”.

To prevent smallpox epidemics, the GDR stuck with its compulsory vaccination, even though there was vaccine damage. Annually, health authorities recorded one to two deaths and some cases of brain inflammation as a result of vaccination. This was seen as justifiable. The case of the Yugoslavian guest worker remained the last recorded smallpox disease in all of Germany.

In 1979, the World Health Organization announced the end of smallpox. They were thus officially eradicated worldwide – a great success for modern medicine.

Public health as a result of the superiority of the socialist system – that was what the GDR was all about when it came to vaccination. The slogan was issued: “Socialism is the best prophylaxis”. Vaccinations against smallpox, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, tuberculosis and, from the 1970s, measles were mandatory. . Until the age of 18, adolescents received a total of 20 protective vaccinations – prescribed by the state

The coercive state had its advantages; while polio epidemics were still raging in the West in 1960, the centrally administered GDR society had been largely immunized against polio since 1958.

But there was also vaccination fatigue in the GDR. There have been spontaneous sick calls before vaccination appointments and refusals of shots by skeptical parents. In some regions, the vaccination rate fell below 50%. The SED reacted in its own way – with permanent vaccination centers and mass vaccinations in vacation camps, schools and factories.

By the end of the 1970s, the GDR was falling behind more and more in vaccination Too many vaccination appointments made people recalcitrant. Combination vaccines were not available. Epidemics, such as measles, which had been thought to have been conquered, reached East Berlin again in the 1980s. GDR vaccine production suffered from ancient machinery. Ampoules were sealed with increasingly poor quality rubber. Despite all health and vaccination programs, life expectancy in the East was almost three years lower than in the West in 1989.

However, the legend of the exemplary GDR vaccination and health care system persists to this day. At that time, it is thought, there could have been no shortage of protective masks. Yet intensive care already lacked modern equipment in normal operations.

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The beginnings of the Berlin Wall. October 1962

The course of the Berlin Wall meant that many people in West Berlin lived directly next to the Wall. While houses in East Berlin in the immediate vicinity of the border were cleared and demolished, the West Berliners remained living there.

The shock quickly gave way to habit. Since the border had been set according to the sweeping limits of garbage collection, there was only a narrow footpath in front of some houses, which actually already belonged to East Berlin. Because the wall was almost nowhere the actual border, it was usually 3 – 5 m further in the direction of West Berlin.

But as a rule, the use was tolerated. For this, everything on the GDR side had been removed that could have given the refugees visual cover.

https://youtu.be/7E3T7eiSBsY

Since the death strip was constantly controlled with microphones, many tunnels were dug by escape helpers into East Berlin in the early years. As a starting point, the houses directly on the border had been particularly suitable.

Many tunnels were betrayed by informers. There were quite a few SED sympathizers in West Berlin, others did it for money. However, anyone caught by the occupants of the house received a severe beating before being handed over to the authorities.

Occasionally, the quiet was interrupted by escape attempts. Again and again, bullets hit the facades of West Berlin houses. Sometimes the bullets landed in living rooms or bedrooms when they shot through the windows. This could also happen in accidents; I myself, as a passerby, experienced how a bullet, not far from me, hit a house wall. The border guard had loaded the gun, dropped it and the shot went off.

However, this was at a section of the Wall where the street belonged to West Berlin on both sides. There, too, people lived in their shadow. The GDR border guards observed all the events on the west side and took photos. This also involved a close look at the apartments. It was feared that Western intelligence agencies might use them as bases.
A telescope on a balcony triggered a flurry of activity. The MfS even sent out agents to check who lived there and what the person was up to. An amateur astronomer or a potential boundary violator? A large number of the house residents near the wall had Stasi files. Especially those who had relatives in the GDR.

Quite a few people liked to live near the wall. Since the border often interrupted roads, the area was then like a traffic-calmed zone. In addition, these residential areas were often particularly inexpensive. The lighting and guarding of the border installations even gave some West Berliners a sense of security. For example, the allotment garden colony “Freedom on the Wall” was free of burglaries at that time.

With the fall of the Wall in 1989, all that changed quickly.

Nevertheless, the people who lived in its shadow are naturally happy about the fall of the Wall.

The post Life in the shadow of the wall appeared first on Wall Museum.

During the Cold War, as this portion of the Havel River formed the border between West Berlin and East Germany, the bridge was used several times for the exchange of captured spies and thus became known as the Bridge of Spies.

The Berlin Wall was there in all weathers, but some weather conditions made it easier to escape if you prepared accordingly.

On the night of November 21, 1963, 21-year-old Hubert Hohlbein swam through the Jungfernsee, not far from Cecilienhof Palace. After 90 minutes in the ice-cold water, he reached the West Berlin shore, 200m from the Glienicker Bridge.

He ran to the bridge, where West Berlin police officers warmed him with blankets and called an ambulance. He survived the escape well.

Two of his friends had already successfully used this escape route there before. The three obtained diving suits and secretly trained to swim and dive under the ice in the waters in and around Berlin.

Hohlbein decided to help others escape from the West. In October 1964, his group managed to help 57 GDR citizens escape through a tunnel. Among them was his mother.

In the GDR he was denied an academic degree because he was the son of an entrepreneur and so had to do an apprenticeship. Now he could fulfill his dream and study.

The post Escapes in the dark season appeared first on Wall Museum.

Due to its large forests, West Berlin, which was enclosed by the wall
forests, West Berlin had far more wildlife than one would expect in a metropolis of over two million people.
million inhabitants.
It was not until the 1980s that environmentalists recognised the immense ecological value of the
of the border strip. And it was only shortly before the fall of the Wall that the well-known nature filmmaker Heinz
Sielmann made this fact known to a wider public with his TV documentary “Tiere
in the Shadow of the Border”.

Prior to that, the border installations had almost always received negative media coverage in relation to animals.
negative, e.g. whenever members of the border troops shot stray dogs.
shot. The outcry in the West Berlin print media in these cases was scarcely
than in the cases of people who had been killed.
But dogs were not only targets of the border guards, they were also collaborators.
In addition to the 2,300 or so two-legged members of the border troops who were on duty every day and guarded the Wall, dogs were also used as a weapon.
guarding the Wall every day, there were also over 1,000 dogs living in the border
lived in the border fortifications. Their area of responsibility lay directly next to the three-metre-high Hinterland wall to the GDR
and its various signalling installations. Apart from in densely populated areas, they were
leashed to walkways everywhere on the border strip. During their walks, the West Berliners could hear their
aggressive barking over great distances. In the course of the decades, an enormous number of
number of “chain dogs” served on the Berlin border. Unlike the border guards, there was no pension for them.
most of them were euthanised when they became too old to serve.
old for service.

The Berlin wildlife benefited from an enormous difference in the fortification of the
German-German border to the Federal Republic: there were no mines or self
self-propelled guns. Thus the death strip became a refuge for many smaller animal species.
Less conspicuous were the rare plants that, despite the use of poisons, found niches to survive in the border area.
to survive in the border area.
Hunting was also restricted. In the border area of the GDR, only comrades who were 100
comrades who were loyal to the system were allowed to hunt.
as was customary for West German hunters. For hunting
the hunters of the workers’ and peasants’ state in the border region had to
local police stations and return it after 72 hours at the latest.
after 72 hours at the latest.

The few West Berlin hunters (only Allied members of the Rod and
Gun club) and the West Berlin foresters sometimes made the astonishing
experience that wild boars sought shelter in the shadow of the Wall. Since the
the Wall was not the actual border, there was a strip of land that
hunters could not follow them. They were never allowed to shoot in the direction of the
in the direction of the wall. The not at all stupid pigs seem to have
have realised this.
The East Berlin and Brandenburg wild boars involuntarily contributed to the
the scarce foreign currency coffers. Many ended up in the kitchens of
gourmet restaurants in Western Europe. On paper, the hunters received
a 20 percent share, but 1 to 1 in GDR marks. And this
was credited to the hunting society, which was then allowed to organise
which was then allowed to organise communal evenings with the money.
Even if the wild boars and deer could not cross the actual border fortifications
the actual border fortifications, they found their own ways to swim long distances
long distances and thus bypassed the border fortifications.
Other animals took a more direct approach. Foxes undermined the barriers and
small animals could sometimes even pass directly through them. Some bird species
learned that they could breed particularly safely in the restricted area.
The border rabbits even became the secret symbol of the GDR opposition.
opposition. Pacifist animals that were able to cross the Wall at will, not not over-
but “under” it. The 1972 “Rabbit Flag Festival” by the
East Berlin artist Manfred Butzmann was an alternative children’s festival,
far removed from any SED youth work. It was conceived as a persiflage of the
GDR’s flag mania. To what extent the SED realised the allusions to the
the border rabbits was clear to the SED is impossible to say.
For tourists coming to West Berlin for the first time, the size of the forest and water areas was a surprise.
of the forest and water areas was a surprise. They came with the
of something like a small medieval town with a city wall.
city walls. And found themselves in a city with a zoo (West Berlin),
zoo (East Berlin) and many wild animals in numerous parks and forests.
forests. For the West Berliner
encounters with stone martens,
raccoons, foxes, rabbits, wild rabbits, wild boars and deer were completely normal and
they were particularly frequent in the border area.

Escaped West Berlin animals were a big problem. If, for example, a dog strayed into the
dog strayed into the area between the Wall and the actual border, its master or mistress was not allowed to
mistresses were not allowed to fetch it from there. Even the West Berlin police were not allowed to enter the area.
enter the area. Only the GDR border guards and the soldiers of the Western Allied garrisons
were able to rescue the animal. In the course of the progressive easing of tensions, the
border guards mostly reacted humanely in later years. They ignored it when the owners
animal and committed a “border violation”.
With the demolition of the Wall, the animals lost many of their hiding places in the border area. But
more and more of them come into the city, so many that wild boars have become a plague.
a plague. Especially on the outskirts of the city, many garden owners have now built their own
built their own border protection systems.

The post Animals on the border patrol appeared first on Wall Museum.

As is often the case, it was the combination of danger and the desire to be known in the scene that magically attracted people.

Thierry Noir and Keith Haring were among the most famous. But more and more artists and even more wannabes painted the wall in the 80s. Many works were painted over by others within hours, and occasionally it was the border troops who painted the Wall white again. But they did almost nothing against the sprayers who profited from the policy of détente.

The real Wall art is largely lost. Demolition and the many “Wall Woodpeckers” have destroyed most of it.

At Potsdamer Platz there is still a small piece of Wall that was painted by artists.

In the Mauerpark on Bernauer Strasse there is a Wall that is still being constantly altered by graffiti sprayers in the original form of the Wall art.

The rest of the Wall on Bernauer Strasse is preserved in its original 1979 GDR form. Fresh attempts at painting are quickly removed.

The East Side Gallery, which begins at The Wall Museum and leads from there towards Ostbahnhof, is the most famous open-air gallery in Berlin. Around 100 artists from all over the world painted on Mühlenstraße. But the wall there was the hinterland wall to the GDR side, so painting there only began after the fall of the wall in 1989. For purists, it therefore has little or nothing to do with the old wall art. But it now attracts more tourists than the other sections of the Wall.

Today, almost none of the works are in their original condition. A large part has been restored, but this was controversial from the beginning. Some of the original artists refused to cooperate. They formed an initiative to protect their copyright. Court cases began over the question of who owns the art on the wall. Another problem is the fact that the Spree plots there are among the most sought-after building plots in Berlin. That’s why a lot of segments of the Hinterland wall there have already been removed. The district of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg has neither the financial means nor the professional skills to find a permanent solution. Thirty years ago, no one thought about what decades of environmental exposure to spray paint would do to concrete. No artist could have seriously expected his work to last there.

For many old West Berliners, the wrangling over the East Side Gallery is a perversion of the original wall art that was not commercial and was never meant to last forever.

Most wall artists before 1989 documented their work photographically, and for many, these images were the actual work of art. And it is precisely this representation of wall art that can be found today in the Mühlenspeicher, which houses the multimedia The Wall Museum. It makes a fascinating contrast to the post-1989 Talmi wall art outside.

And my personal favourite among the lost wall art? In 1983-89, the BBC showed the comedy series Blackadder in which the borderline-debatable Baldrick had the running gag: “I have a cunning plan”. These plans were always ludicrous and simply couldn’t work. Shortly before the fall of the Wall, someone spray-painted on the wall: “Don’t worry GDR, Baldrick has a cunning plan”.

The post Wall art appeared first on Wall Museum.

German planes were not allowed to fly to West Berlin, so passengers only had the choice between the airlines of the three Western Allied nations. The American “PAN AM”, the French “Air France” and the British “British Airways” were the most common airlines.
Only the Polish “LOT” was allowed to use the corridors as a non-allied airline from Schönefeld.

The three corridors were each 20 miles / 32 km wide and aircraft were not allowed to leave them.
All flights had to be reported at least two hours in advance at the Berlin Air Safety Center, or “BASC” for short. The application had to be approved by representatives of all four powers, if one of them did not agree, a note was added to the flight safety card; “Safety of flight not guaranteed”, which was mostly done by the Soviet side.

Until the opening of Tegel, Tempelhof was the only airport also used by civilians. Gatow Airport was only used by the “RAF”.

During the construction work on the runways at Tegel Airport around 1975, “PAN AM” and “British Airways” only flew to Tegel Airport in exceptional cases.
This was also the case on 16 November 1966, when PAN AM aircraft flew passengers during the day and mail at night.

A Boeing 727 had flown from Tegel to Frankfurt with mail freight and then returned to the GDR with the new cargo from West Germany. Expected arrival: 02:55 hrs.
The crew of PAN AM 708, Flight Captain Walter T. Reavis, 51, Copilot Raymond B. Foppe, 52, and Flight Engineer John W. Charlton, 34, were considered experienced, but due to bad weather: visibility 2.6 kilometres, light snowfall, cloud base at 160 metres, lower in places, they did not make it.

At 2:41 a.m. there was the last radio contact, immediately afterwards the aircraft disappeared from the radar screen of the air traffic control: about 15 kilometres from Tegel airport. The aircraft had hit the ground at a speed of between 250 and 300 km/h, with the landing gear already extended.
Ten hours later, the Soviets officially informed the Americans of the crash; the death of the crew was not confirmed until the evening. The Soviets did not allow anyone from the West access to the widely cordoned-off crash site. They cleaned up the site themselves, recovered the dead and the remaining mailbags. They handed everything over to the Staaken checkpoint on 17 November 1966. But only a little more than half of the plane debris was handed over. Specifically, the flight recorder and the voice recorder were missing, as well as the tailplane and vertical stabiliser. A common practice at the time: when a Soviet interceptor had crashed into the Spandauer Stößensee months before, the British had kept it similar.
German planes were not allowed to fly to West Berlin, so passengers only had the choice between the airlines of the three Western Allied nations. The American “PAN AM”, the French “Air France” and the British “British Airways” were the most common airlines.
Only the Polish “LOT” was allowed to use the corridors as a non-allied airline from Schönefeld.

The three corridors were each 20 miles / 32 km wide and aircraft were not allowed to leave them.
All flights had to be reported at least two hours in advance at the Berlin Air Safety Center, or “BASC” for short. The application had to be approved by representatives of all four powers, if one of them did not agree, a note was added to the flight safety card; “Safety of flight not guaranteed”, which was mostly done by the Soviet side.

Until the opening of Tegel, Tempelhof was the only airport also used by civilians. Gatow Airport was only used by the “RAF”.

During the construction work on the runways at Tegel Airport around 1975, “PAN AM” and “British Airways” only flew to Tegel Airport in exceptional cases.
This was also the case on 16 November 1966, when PAN AM aircraft flew passengers during the day and mail at night.

A Boeing 727 had flown from Tegel to Frankfurt with mail freight and then returned to the GDR with the new cargo from West Germany. Expected arrival: 02:55 hrs.
The crew of PAN AM 708, Flight Captain Walter T. Reavis, 51, Copilot Raymond B. Foppe, 52, and Flight Engineer John W. Charlton, 34, were considered experienced, but due to bad weather: visibility 2.6 kilometres, light snowfall, cloud base at 160 metres, lower in places, they did not make it.

At 2:41 a.m. there was the last radio contact, immediately afterwards the aircraft disappeared from the radar screen of the air traffic control: about 15 kilometres from Tegel airport. The aircraft had hit the ground at a speed of between 250 and 300 km/h, with the landing gear already extended.
Ten hours later, the Soviets officially informed the Americans of the crash; the death of the crew was not confirmed until the evening. The Soviets did not allow anyone from the West access to the widely cordoned-off crash site. They cleaned up the site themselves, recovered the dead and the remaining mailbags. They handed everything over to the Staaken checkpoint on 17 November 1966. But only a little more than half of the plane debris was handed over. Specifically, the flight recorder and the voice recorder were missing, as well as the tailplane and vertical stabiliser. A common practice at the time: when a Soviet interceptor had crashed into the Spandauer Stößensee months before, the British had kept it similar.

Immediately the rumour mill was boiling. West Berlin newspapers speculated that flight 708 had been shot down.

It was an open secret that the “PAN AM” worked closely with the CIA.
A number of their aircraft had lockable camera ports and retractable antennas, often flying courses that allowed them to fly out of the designated corridors for some time.

The Soviet Union responded with fighter planes firing warning shots to push the planes away from Soviet bases. US comedian Bob Hope, after a visit to Berlin, said the route to Berlin was well lit, with tracer ammunition all around the planes.

US authorities denied a shootdown. There was no evidence of an explosion or bullet damage on the wreckage, according to the US report.
The aircraft would not have completed its descent at the instructed altitude and had peeled off against the 63-metre high old Mühlenberg, about three kilometres southeast of Döberitz airfield.
In the book “Flugplatz Döberitz” by Kai Biermann and Erhard Cielewicz (Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2005), the assumption was made that radar installations of the Soviet anti-aircraft defence in nearby Elstal could have interfered with the radio guidance beam and thus caused the crash. However, they overlook the fact that this would not have affected (switched off) the altimeter.
In the explanation given by the FAA, the error was in the calibration of the altimeter. Frankfurt is 100m above sea level, Tegel only 37m. The NTSB acknowledged the possibility as an error, but did not make a final judgement.

PROBABLE CAUSE: “The descent of the flight below its altitude clearance limit, but the Board has been unable to determine the cause of such descent”.

But to this day, former “PAN AM” employees living in Berlin report that the plane was shot down.

The post PAN AT FLIGHT 708 appeared first on Wall Museum.

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The special legal situation of diplomats protected them from persecution. And the diplomatic papers allowed them to cross the border into West Berlin (via Checkpoint Charlie) at any time. There was no shortage for them because they had access to the markets of the world. Fruit from all over the world, a car without years of waiting, everything was possible.
Ralph Morton had been Third Secretary for Internal Affairs at the British Embassy since 1987. His main responsibilities were the press and the church in the GDR. As there was no second secretary, his fields of activity were more extensive than normal.
The embassy was located in East Berlin at Unter den Linden 32-34, but officially it was only responsible for the GDR without East Berlin. The four-power status made this necessary. Hence “British Embassy to the GDR”, i.e. embassy “to” the GDR, not “in” the GDR. In practice, however, East Berlin was also “handled”. The consular powers were also arranged in such a way that no recognition of East Berlin’s belonging to the GDR could be read out. A French diplomat answered a question to this effect very cautiously: “As far as Berlin is concerned, I think you know who is in charge.”
A cautious approach was taken. It was a rule that GDR citizens were not granted asylum in Western embassies
Morton’s father had landed in Normandy in 1944 with the 79th Armoured Division and fought his way into Germany in his AVRE engineer tank. He had little use for Germans and so his marriage to a German was probably surprising even to himself. The couple lived in Oxford where he worked as an architect until his death. Ralph spoke little German at home, but the family often went on holiday to Germany.

He studied humanities and entered the diplomatic service. This was followed by service in various countries, including West Germany. As he had a number of friends in West Berlin, the transfer to East Berlin was almost a homecoming for him.
He arrived shortly before the 750th anniversary of Berlin. While citizens usually had to wait a long time for housing, the East Berlin administration (Service Office) provided flats for diplomats, in old or new buildings, as desired. Mr. Morton moved into a prefabricated building near Friedrichstraße. But unlike in houses for GDR citizens, the floors were divided differently. Instead of four to six flats, there were only two. He had a huge dining room, living room, several bedrooms, kitchen and bathroom. A small special feature in the diplomatic house was an alcove next to the front door, where a GDR guard always stood to check on visitors.

The cleaning lady was an East Berliner and reported to the State Security. And she didn’t just clean. That’s why a British exterminator often appeared in the flat. On the hunt for “bugs”. Surveillance was permanent, diplomats were always told about it by their embassies. On the West Berlin side of Friedrichstraße there was a telephone booth that was bugged again and again. Mobile phones were rare at that time and some diplomats were naïve and thought they could safely make confidential calls there.

Ralph Morton had no misconceptions about the GDR. When asked what he thought of it, he privately called it “cute”. Naturally, this provoked astonished reactions. An unjust state was cute? The GDR of the late 1980s reminded him of Monty Python or Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. A satire on the Federal Republic or a democratic state. But a state of injustice. Full of absurdities.
His job brought him close to the events that led to the end of the GDR. The ecclesiastical opposition in the GDR was usually viewed critically by diplomats from NATO countries because it represented an extreme form of the peace movement. Mr Morton attended their events on duty and was usually bored stiff. “Everyone was desperate to talk and few had anything to say”. As became apparent after the fall of communism, the church’s contacts with the state leadership were often closer than admitted.

Morton had many contacts with pastors and opposition figures and that is precisely why he has no illusions today about their role in the collapse of the GDR. Many wanted a different socialism, not an annexation to the Federal Republic.
A diplomatic tour of the GDR in 1988 was accompanied by much propaganda. The GDR was a peace state. The youth would be educated for peace and there would be no war toys. Of course he knew about the pre-military education in GDR schools. He used the next stop to visit a toy shop where he bought a FROG rocket launcher model. “This is a peace toy” was his comment as he passed it through the bus. The shops were full of war toys and he amassed a nice collection over the years in East Berlin.
The embassy had shop windows on Unter den Linden displaying British products and newspapers. There were always people’s policemen there to keep an eye on who showed too much interest. At times they even erected barriers. But since practically everyone in East Berlin used West Berlin media, this was simply senseless actionism. Almost everyone knew about Western advertising television.

The British press was poorly represented in East Berlin. Reuters had a correspondent living there, but the BBC representative lived in West Berlin. At the end of the 1980s, the Stasi took a cautious approach. Journalists were far less harassed than before. Great importance was attached to avoiding bad press. So Ralph Morton’s tasks in this area were easy.

The long prepared celebrations for the anniversary of the GDR on 7 October 1989 failed to have the effect the government had hoped for. It fell into disarray. The large demonstrations in October 89 remained peaceful, the measures planned by the GDR leadership failed to materialise because the hardliners could not find a majority. 4 November 1989 brought up to 500,000 people to East Berlin’s Alexanderplatz. The People’s Police and the NVA did nothing to stop them.
But no diplomat got the wrong idea. It was Mikhail Gorbachev who was responsible. By withdrawing support from the SED, he decided the course of events. If the Russians had intervened, the peaceful revolution would have turned into a bloodbath. And the Western Allies would have stood by and watched. No one was prepared to risk a world war for the citizens of the GDR.

As a diplomat, Morton had no problems with the border guards for a long time. That only changed after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Obviously, some of the border guards suffered under the new situation. After 9 November, breakthroughs were created in many places, including one not far from Checkpoint Charlie. The checkpoint itself remained open only to the same groups that had been allowed to use it before the Wende.
So when he and a West Berlin friend wanted to go to his East Berlin flat together, they went to the new breakthrough. Crowds of people walked peacefully in both directions. Germans from East and West, Turks, Vietnamese and people from many other countries. On the west side there was a single policeman who smiled at everyone and didn’t waste a glance at the papers.

On the east side, a signpost had been erected and border guards looked sternly at the people. People simply held up their identity cards and were waved through. The German friend went ahead, then Morton. “HALT” The border guard, probably slightly confused, waved the diplomat out. He explained to him that as a diplomat he was privileged and therefore only allowed to use Checkpoint Charlie. Suddenly the diplomat did not understand German. The West Berlin policeman had a fit of laughter and it took the border guard a few minutes to realise that he was about to produce an international incident. He asked, and received an order over the radio. Growling, he let the diplomat pass.
When they arrived at the house, they were in for a surprise. The alcove was empty, the guards had disappeared forever.

The post A diplomat at the fall of the Wall appeared first on Wall Museum.

Many people thought of a city in the style of medieval Nuremberg with a city wall. A city in which one constantly comes up against the wall. Nothing could be more wrong. West Berlin had an area of 479.9 km2. In 1989, 2,130,525 people lived there.

In addition to forested areas, West Berlin also had large expanses of water. The large Wannsee with 2.732 km² is one of many. The Spree and Havel rivers as well as numerous smaller rivers and canals made West Berlin a water city. In many places, the approximately 1690 km long “Wall” was a wet border.

West Berlin was so large that the border could often not be seen for long periods of time. A contemporary witness reports:

I was born in 1963 in Berlin-Tempelhof and for me the Wall was completely normal. I lived in the American sector with a view of Tempelhof Airport, so the sight of US soldiers was a matter of course for me. For some older people they were occupation troops, for many they were protectors.

My first trips were flights, all on PANAM, the US airline that flew to West Berlin.

In 1972, the Four Power Agreement came into force and was followed by the Transit Agreement, which allowed West Berliners to travel to West Germany by car or train. Most of them, to be precise – thousands were not allowed to use the transit routes. Republikflüchtlinge, some members of the West Berlin administration but also others could only enter or leave West Berlin by air.

A visa was issued at the border by GDR border guards for each journey. For residents of West Berlin, an extra sheet was inserted in the “makeshift” Berlin identity card, because the passports issued by the Federal Republic for residents of West Berlin were not recognised by the GDR authorities.

My first memories of crossing the border are associated with car journeys. In the early years, you had to park and go into a barrack where visas were issued. Later, clearance became mechanised. The checkpoints had several lanes. Sometimes you were assigned to a lane by a border guard, sometimes you were allowed to choose freely. And like at the checkout in the supermarket, you tried to guess where the fastest lane was. A border guard in a glass box took the papers and put them in a folder after an initial check. The folder ended up on a covered conveyor belt. Which always caused us fears, because every now and then the system ate identity cards. At the end of the conveyor belt was a barrack and this had a bay window where another border guard sat and handed out the papers and visas after processing. But don’t drive past the stop sign without being waved in first. Or you didn’t react quickly enough. Both could mean that you had to drive out of your lane and get a special check. This could last for hours. In the early years, almost every vehicle was closely inspected. Seats were removed and every corner of the boots was scrutinised. In the 80s, this rarely happened.

It’s hard to describe the feeling I had as a West Berliner in transit. It wasn’t fear directly, but always unease. The People’s Police monitored the speed limits closely, actual or alleged violations flushed large sums of West German money into the always empty GDR coffers. Even a tachograph didn’t protect, a Volkspolizei was always right. I myself got my driving licence in 1981 at the age of 18 and was lucky, I was never asked to pay. However, as a passenger I experienced my father being stopped for an alleged offence. You kept your mouth shut and paid. Even if you were completely innocent. Only fools argued, because you couldn’t win.

Since I lived far away from the Wall, I only saw it relatively rarely and only once did I experience shooting. It was probably a warning shot, but the border guard had fired in such a way that the bullet hit a house in West Berlin. Fortunately no one was injured. The West Berlin police, who had no jurisdiction, appeared, then American military personnel. Sure enough, there was the usual protest, which was filed away as usual. There was a small newspaper notice.

I only had distant relatives in East Berlin, so I rarely went “over there”. About ten times in all those years. The compulsory exchange (in GDR German, Mindestumtausch) was a good reason not to want to go to East Berlin. For citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin, it amounted to 25 GDR marks per day at a rate of 1 : 1 (one GDR mark for one Deutsche Bundesbank mark). But the GDR mark was worth far less internationally. In the exchange offices of West Berlin, one DM cost over four Ostmarks. Exporting and importing GDR marks was forbidden. When my school class made a day visit to East Berlin, we had trouble getting rid of the money. We went to the most expensive restaurant in the Palace of the Republic, treated ourselves to everything else we wanted and still had GDR money before we left. There was simply hardly anything we could have bought and wanted to take with us. Bookshops, for example, offered almost no interesting books. What to do? We put it in the trays of the ticket machines at Friedrichstraße station.

Restaurants in East Berlin didn’t entice me anyway. Relatives once invited my parents and me to the best fish restaurant in East Berlin. We were asked if we wanted something from the salad bar. I will never forget this “salad bar”. One head each of white and red cabbage, a grater and a pot of oil. And as a special fish restaurant? Every Italian in West Berlin had more types of fish to choose from.

Apart from a few museums, the city held little appeal for me. The whole GDR seemed grey, there was an obvious lack of sensible wall colours. Like hundreds of thousands of West Berliners, I was always glad to be back in the West. Many had the habit of greeting the bear statue that stood (and still stands) on the west side of the autobahn after the transit motorway with a short honk. Some old West Berliners still do this nowadays, much to the irritation of younger people or strangers.

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