Why did East Germany place storage buildings on the A4 between Bautzen and Weissenberg?

[Bryn666]

Still likely to be Volkspolizei. There may have been some Stasi input but road policing was Volkspolizei, it was a job beneath the secret police.

The place that there likely would have been Stasi agents would have been the Raststattens (services) on the transit routes. My understanding is that these could be used by both Westerners and East Germans, however contact between the two was discouraged, and I don't know what would have happened in the scenario where a Westerner left a West German newspaper on a table in the restaurant area, or if a Westerner told an East German about life outside of the DDR.

A Western paper would just be put in the trash or secreted, remember most East Germans had access to West German TV and radio. Proper ARD or ZDF, not things like the BBC World Service, Radio Free Europe, or Voice of America. Ordinary stuff aimed at a domestic West German audience. Those conversations would have been held between relatives, in euphemisms as the Stasi had informants. But most secret police forces do not have agents everywhere. Even for the most paranoid state that is too expensive, the staff would have been politically vetted but not Stasi.

Yes, with the exception of the Dresden region which didn't pick up much because of the geography, everyone in East Germany knew what was going on over the border to the west and that's exactly the point of making sure information filters across borders.

[exiled]

Yes, with the exception of the Dresden region which didn't pick up much because of the geography, everyone in East Germany knew what was going on over the border to the west and that's exactly the point of making sure information filters across borders.

It was joked that ARD stood for 'Except Rugen and Dresden', the two bits of the GDR that were too far from the nearest West German masts.

[RJDG14]

Still likely to be Volkspolizei. There may have been some Stasi input but road policing was Volkspolizei, it was a job beneath the secret police.

The place that there likely would have been Stasi agents would have been the Raststattens (services) on the transit routes. My understanding is that these could be used by both Westerners and East Germans, however contact between the two was discouraged, and I don't know what would have happened in the scenario where a Westerner left a West German newspaper on a table in the restaurant area, or if a Westerner told an East German about life outside of the DDR.

A Western paper would just be put in the trash or secreted, remember most East Germans had access to West German TV and radio. Proper ARD or ZDF, not things like the BBC World Service, Radio Free Europe, or Voice of America. Ordinary stuff aimed at a domestic West German audience. Those conversations would have been held between relatives, in euphemisms as the Stasi had informants. But most secret police forces do not have agents everywhere. Even for the most paranoid state that is too expensive, the staff would have been politically vetted but not Stasi.

I think there were cases in East Germany where a Stasi agent would visit schools and ask naive first grade students to fill out a questionaire with questions such as "What is the appearance of the clock at the top of the hour on TV?". They could then use this data to work out which households were watching West German TV, and put the parents of children who gave a description matching the ARD/ZDF clocks on watchlists. I suspect they may have also asked questions along the lines of what music these kids heard on the radio.

I think some of the teachers at East German schools were Stasi informants and would periodically give the Stasi essays written by students to that they could keep a record of what their handwriting looked like. Typewriters also had to be registered with them.

[exiled]

I think there were cases in East Germany where a Stasi agent would visit schools and ask naive first grade students to fill out a questionaire with questions such as "What is the appearance of the clock at the top of the hour on TV?". They could then use this data to work out which households were watching West German TV, and put the parents of children who gave a description matching the ARD/ZDF clocks on watchlists.

The book Stasiland confirms this, and also that so many children drew the ARD/ZDF clocks instead of the DDR one they had to drop the project. It was specifically one clock they were interested, the one which appeared before the evening news.

[RJDG14]

I think there were cases in East Germany where a Stasi agent would visit schools and ask naive first grade students to fill out a questionaire with questions such as "What is the appearance of the clock at the top of the hour on TV?". They could then use this data to work out which households were watching West German TV, and put the parents of children who gave a description matching the ARD/ZDF clocks on watchlists.

The book Stasiland confirms this, and also that so many children drew the ARD/ZDF clocks instead of the DDR one they had to drop the project. It was specifically one clock they were interested, the one which appeared before the evening news.

I think during the later years of the DDR that the authorities quietly accepted the dominance of West German TV on their population and did little to stop it, instead trying to make their domestic output better. West Germany used the PAL format while East Germany used SECAM (on a PAL/SECAM only set the other format would be in black and white), but a lot of the later East German colour TV sets produced from the mid 1970s onwards supported both PAL and SECAM colour, and this was allegedly done because party officials wanted the ability to watch West German programming in colour. I think a lot of West German sets were also capable of both colour formats in order to make them easier to sell in, say, France, which used SECAM. I think most of the working East German sets by 1990 were capable of both PAL and SECAM colour and the former East switched to broadcasting in PAL when it became part of the BRD.

[Berk]

The place that there likely would have been Stasi agents would have been the Raststattens (services) on the transit routes. My understanding is that these could be used by both Westerners and East Germans, however contact between the two was discouraged, and I don't know what would have happened in the scenario where a Westerner left a West German newspaper on a table in the restaurant area, or if a Westerner told an East German about life outside of the DDR.

A Western paper would just be put in the trash or secreted, remember most East Germans had access to West German TV and radio. Proper ARD or ZDF, not things like the BBC World Service, Radio Free Europe, or Voice of America. Ordinary stuff aimed at a domestic West German audience. Those conversations would have been held between relatives, in euphemisms as the Stasi had informants. But most secret police forces do not have agents everywhere. Even for the most paranoid state that is too expensive, the staff would have been politically vetted but not Stasi.

I think there were cases in East Germany where a Stasi agent would visit schools and ask naive first grade students to fill out a questionaire with questions such as "What is the appearance of the clock at the top of the hour on TV?". They could then use this data to work out which households were watching West German TV, and put the parents of children who gave a description matching the ARD/ZDF clocks on watchlists. I suspect they may have also asked questions along the lines of what music these kids heard on the radio.

I think some of the teachers at East German schools were Stasi informants and would periodically give the Stasi essays written by students to that they could keep a record of what their handwriting looked like. Typewriters also had to be registered with them.

I think the interviewing about what sort of tv was watched and handwriting wasn’t routine any longer by the 1970s. Unless there was an individual they were particularly interested in.

Remember, if you were lucky enough to have a home phone, it was bugged automatically too. Every line in the country, every time a call was made, a connection was made back to a monitoring centre, mostly in Berlin.

The daft thing being that STD dialling didn’t work within the DDR itself, only for international calls. Internally, you would’ve needed to know the local dialling codes for the exchange you were on.

BT, and other networks used something similar (dial xx or xxx for YYY), but that was for local calls only. This was the only system available in the east.

[exiled]

I think during the later years of the DDR that the authorities quietly accepted the dominance of West German TV on their population and did little to stop it, instead trying to make their domestic output better. West Germany used the PAL format while East Germany used SECAM (on a PAL/SECAM only set the other format would be in black and white), but a lot of the later East German colour TV sets produced from the mid 1970s onwards supported both PAL and SECAM colour, and this was allegedly done because party officials wanted the ability to watch West German programming in colour. I think a lot of West German sets were also capable of both colour formats in order to make them easier to sell in, say, France, which used SECAM. I think most of the working East German sets by 1990 were capable of both PAL and SECAM colour and the former East switched to broadcasting in PAL when it became part of the BRD.

The point is not that they did little to stop it, they could not stop it. Neither could the USSR block Finnish signals being picked up in Estonia. Any attempts to block would have interfered with West German signals in West Germany. It is as if the Republic of Ireland tried to block UK signals, or Belgium tried to block French or Dutch signals, they'd have ended up blocking domestic broadcasting in another country. In the case of the GDR they would not block either because they were getting money from Bonn, for maintenance of the road links and other things.

[exiled]

I think the interviewing about what sort of tv was watched and handwriting wasn’t routine any longer by the 1970s. Unless there was an individual they were particularly interested in.

Remember, if you were lucky enough to have a home phone, it was bigger automatically too. Every line in the country, every time a call was made, a connection was made back to a monitoring centre, mostly in Berlin.

The daft thing being that STD dialling didn’t work within the DDR itself, only for international calls. Internally, you would’ve needed to know the local dialling codes for the exchange you were on.

BT, and other networks used something similar (dial xx or xxx for YYY), but that was for local calls only. This was the only system available in the east.

As I posted above, the book Stasiland confirms it was done, but almost instantly dropped. Simply because the authorities suddenly found out that the overwhelming majority of their good socialist citizens were tuning into West German TV.

[Berk]

Exactly. Listening to phone conversations would’ve proved more valuable.

[RJDG14]

A Western paper would just be put in the trash or secreted, remember most East Germans had access to West German TV and radio. Proper ARD or ZDF, not things like the BBC World Service, Radio Free Europe, or Voice of America. Ordinary stuff aimed at a domestic West German audience. Those conversations would have been held between relatives, in euphemisms as the Stasi had informants. But most secret police forces do not have agents everywhere. Even for the most paranoid state that is too expensive, the staff would have been politically vetted but not Stasi.

I think there were cases in East Germany where a Stasi agent would visit schools and ask naive first grade students to fill out a questionaire with questions such as "What is the appearance of the clock at the top of the hour on TV?". They could then use this data to work out which households were watching West German TV, and put the parents of children who gave a description matching the ARD/ZDF clocks on watchlists. I suspect they may have also asked questions along the lines of what music these kids heard on the radio.

I think some of the teachers at East German schools were Stasi informants and would periodically give the Stasi essays written by students to that they could keep a record of what their handwriting looked like. Typewriters also had to be registered with them.

I think the interviewing about what sort of tv was watched and handwriting wasn’t routine any longer by the 1970s. Unless there was an individual they were particularly interested in.

Remember, if you were lucky enough to have a home phone, it was bugged automatically too. Every line in the country, every time a call was made, a connection was made back to a monitoring centre, mostly in Berlin.

The daft thing being that STD dialling didn’t work within the DDR itself, only for international calls. Internally, you would’ve needed to know the local dialling codes for the exchange you were on.

BT, and other networks used something similar (dial xx or xxx for YYY), but that was for local calls only. This was the only system available in the east.

Was it possible for East Germans to call numbers in the West if they knew the number? I have a feeling I've read that the countries behind the Iron Curtain were still connected to the international phone network, although any call made to the West from the East would have almost definitely been monitored and the authorities probably had a way of intercepting and terminating calls. Some East Germans claim that you could often hear weird noises if the Stasi were monitoring your call. Does anyone here know what these noises were typically? These days call tapping would be done digitally and so there would probably be no audible artefacts.

[Chris Bertram]

BT, and other networks used something similar (dial xx or xxx for YYY), but that was for local calls only. This was the only system available in the east.

Indeed, I remember that back in the seventies, when we lived in Sedgley we prefixed Wolverhampton numbers with a 9 and Dudley numbers with 81, and other local exchanges also had short local codes rather than the full STD code. I'm not at all sure when this was withdrawn.

[RichardA626]

I heard that it was possible to leave the train at one of the U-Bahn stations on a line that crossed into in the east, but only to access an Intershop there.

[swissferry]

Some East Germans claim that you could often hear weird noises if the Stasi were monitoring your call. Does anyone here know what these noises were typically? These days call tapping would be done digitally and so there would probably be no audible artefacts.

Don't know about East Germany but was told by a Scot who lived in Vietnam that he knew his calls were being listened to. They didn't attempt to hide the fact as noises were often heard. In his early days in Vietnam, the listener got so frustrated by his limited Vietnamese that he helped translate!

[RJDG14]

I heard that it was possible to leave the train at one of the U-Bahn stations on a line that crossed into in the east, but only to access an Intershop there.

I think it probably shows how desperate the East were for hard currency. Surely this would have been one of the easiest ways for East Germans to attempt to escape, or was this station in the East set up only to serve West Berlin passengers via an Intershop with it being inaccessible to ordinary East Germans?

[bothar]

I heard that it was possible to leave the train at one of the U-Bahn stations on a line that crossed into in the east, but only to access an Intershop there.

I think it probably shows how desperate the East were for hard currency. Surely this would have been one of the easiest ways for East Germans to attempt to escape, or was this station in the East set up only to serve West Berlin passengers via an Intershop with it being inaccessible to ordinary East Germans?

There was a shop on the top S-Bahn platform at Fredrichstrasse, this was only for people changing trains on the Western lines or going to the U Bahn, the middle floor on the station had passport control to actually enter the DDR. The shop probably sold eastern cigarettes and the like, although I had no interest in that product.

[RJDG14]

I heard that it was possible to leave the train at one of the U-Bahn stations on a line that crossed into in the east, but only to access an Intershop there.

I think it probably shows how desperate the East were for hard currency. Surely this would have been one of the easiest ways for East Germans to attempt to escape, or was this station in the East set up only to serve West Berlin passengers via an Intershop with it being inaccessible to ordinary East Germans?

There was a shop on the top S-Bahn platform at Fredrichstrasse, this was only for people changing trains on the Western lines or going to the U Bahn, the middle floor on the station had passport control to actually enter the DDR. The shop probably sold eastern cigarettes and the like, although I had no interest in that product.

According to Wikipedia it was a popular destination for West Berliners to buy alcohol because it was cheaper than buying it in West Berlin, yet the West German authorities technically considered goods from this Intershop contraband as they had been bought without actually having gone through any border point (despite being in a different country's territory) and there was no duty paid on them. It sounds like the West German authorities did do occasional spot checks and I think those caught with goods suspected to have been purchased from the Intershop at Friedrichstrasse Station risked confiscation or a duty surcharge.

[Big Nick]

I remember my first trip to Berlin in 2007. I stayed in the AOHostel on Kopernicker Strasse and the nearest U-Bahn station was Heinrich Heine Strasse. There are no ticket checks at the entrances to the U-Bahn, you are expected to buy and present a valid ticket when asked. No ticket = big fine.

I noticed that HHS looked rather different to the other station on the line having older fittings, kiosks on the platforms, gates, old style lettering on signs. It wasn't till I got home that found out that HHS had been closed off as a ghost station for nearly 30 years and simply not updated when reopened.

In 2013 I went to Berlin again and visited the Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse. It is best accessed from Nordbahnhof which was a ghost station and has a display about them in the station building https://www.berlin.de/mauer/en/sites/mu ... n-station/

[Berk]

I heard that it was possible to leave the train at one of the U-Bahn stations on a line that crossed into in the east, but only to access an Intershop there.

I think it probably shows how desperate the East were for hard currency. Surely this would have been one of the easiest ways for East Germans to attempt to escape, or was this station in the East set up only to serve West Berlin passengers via an Intershop with it being inaccessible to ordinary East Germans?

The latter, I believe. Although East Germans were allowed to visit Intershops, it would draw attention to yourself, particularly as all the staff were Stasi employees.

You could also commit the crime of associating with Western foreigners, or possessing hard currency (during the times when that was restricted).

[roadtester]

For anyone who is interested in all of these ‘what was life really like in the GDR?’ questions, this superb recent book by Katja Hoyer is pretty much indispensable:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/447141/ ... 0241553787

Keen writers and readers of history like Owain and exiled may be interested in the book’s - to me - novel narrative structure which consists of a series of sections, each of which starts with a biographical vignette covering a page or two that describes an episode in the life of a person living in or connected with the GDR, which is then further developed to tell the wider story of what was going on in the country in terms of policy making and government structures and so on. So by the end, you get a very good chronological overview of how the GDR developed and why, as well as a good insight into what life was really like in the workers’ and peasants’ state - both the macro and the micro, I suppose you could say.

[exiled]

For anyone who is interested in all of these ‘what was life really like in the GDR?’ questions, this superb recent book by Katja Hoyer is pretty much indispensable:

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/447141/ ... 0241553787

Keen writers and readers of history like Owain and exiled may be interested in the book’s - to me - novel narrative structure which consists of a series of sections, each of which starts with a biographical vignette covering a page or two that describes an episode in the life of a person living in or connected with the GDR, which is then further developed to tell the wider story of what was going on in the country in terms of policy making and government structures and so on. So by the end, you get a very good chronological overview of how the GDR developed and why, as well as a good insight into what life was really like in the workers’ and peasants’ state - both the macro and the micro, I suppose you could say.

Will have a look at that one.