Border crossing Helmstedt / Marienborn

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Marienborn border crossing point / memorial, April 2007

The Helmstedt / Marienborn border crossing was the largest and most important border crossing on the inner German border during the division of Germany and consisted of the "Helmstedt control point" in the west German district town of Helmstedt and the "Marienborn border crossing point" (GÜSt) in the east German community of Marienborn . Because of the geographical proximity to Berlin , the bulk of the transit traffic between West Germany and Berlin was handled via this border crossing. It was also used for travel to the GDR , Poland and other Eastern Bloc countries . It existed between 1945 and 1990 and regulated border traffic on Autobahn 2, which has been known in the west since 1975 . There were also control posts of the same name for rail traffic in the Helmstedt and Marienborn stations on the Braunschweig – Magdeburg railway line .

history

First checkpoints

Border crossing at Helmstedt / Marienborn, 1949
Visa from the Marienborn border crossing from August 1980 (stamp on the left)
Motorway checkpoint Helmstedt, November 1989

The checkpoint was established on July 1, 1945 by the four victorious Allied powers between the British and Soviet occupation zones and included interzonal rail traffic and motor vehicle traffic on the former Reichsautobahn Hanover-Berlin. The checkpoints for vehicle traffic were located directly on the zone boundary and consisted of temporary wooden buildings on both sides.

The most important inner-German motorway border crossing, Helmstedt, was called the checkpoint "Alpha" by the Western Allies over time. The Dreilinden checkpoint further to the east, at the end of the transit route to Berlin, was labeled “Bravo”. The crossing also became important because, at 167 kilometers, it was the shortest connection to West Berlin. During the Berlin blockade between June 1948 and May 1949, the border crossing was closed to both motorway and rail traffic.

Marienborn border crossing point

Originally operated exclusively by the Soviet occupying power, after the founding of the GDR from 1950, the GDR's border troops increasingly took over border clearance on the eastern side. Due to increasing political tensions between the Western Allies and the Soviet Union during the Cold War , the border clearance systems were expanded and the control measures tightened in the following years. Nevertheless, the border clearance in the temporary facility was considered unsafe.

Between 1972 and 1974, the GDR built a 35 hectare border crossing point (GÜSt) near Marienborn not far from the old control buildings  , which was about 1.5 kilometers behind the border on a hilltop in the east. The motorway area between the actual border and the GÜSt was secured by extensive border systems and concrete walls along the route. Cross-border traffic could be monitored via an elevated control center and retractable vehicle roller barriers could be activated if necessary. At times there were up to 1,000 employees in the areas of passport control , customs, border troops and the Ministry of State Security (MfS). The numerous buildings were connected by an underground tunnel supply system. Access to and knowledge of the tunnels were reserved for a small group of employees. The GDR border troops were housed in the adjacent barracks.

Between 1984 and 1989 around ten million passenger vehicles and around five million trucks were handled.

Soviet checkpoint "Sierra Alpha"

The controls of Allied vehicles on the eastern side were reserved for Soviet border guards for the entire duration of the border crossing. They were handled in separate control buildings (Western Allied name: "Checkpoint Sierra Alpha").

  • Marienborn border crossing in 1954

  • The first border signs seen from the west

  • Control center with vehicle roll barriers
    (in both directions)

  • Marienborn border crossing point 1990

  • Passport controls at the border crossing point

  • Soviet checkpoint

  • Motorway control point Helmstedt

Checkpoint Helmstedt

In the 1950s, after the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany, goods and person controls were carried out by the Federal German customs authorities and the newly established Federal Border Guard . Due to their politically wanted character as a "provisional" facility, the motorway handling facilities on the western side were significantly smaller than the facilities in Marienborn. It was not until the late 1970s that the terminal buildings were modernized. The steadily increasing traffic figures over time and the strict East German control measures led to considerable waiting times and congestion. On the West German side, there was an increased expansion of parking lots and motorway service stations. Until the end of the 1970s, the creation of a zebra crossing for pedestrians on federal motorway 2 shortly before the border checkpoints was unique in the history of German road traffic .

Checkpoint Alpha

Checkpoint Alpha

The three Western Allied victorious powers ( United States , United Kingdom and France ) retained sovereignty over the Allied border traffic analogous to the Soviet facility on the eastern side. Checkpoint Alpha was housed in a separate building from the Helmstedt checkpoint and was accessible via its own access roads. Until the checkpoint was closed, there were small contingents of French, British and American troops in the city of Helmstedt.

The checkpoint was one of three checkpoints used by the Allies. Its western side (belonging to the former British occupation zone) was named “Checkpoint Alpha” after the first letter of today's ICAO alphabet . Checkpoint Bravo was the American side of the Dreilinden - Drewitz border checkpoint and Checkpoint Charlie was the allied border crossing within Berlin .

The nomenclature checkpoint for checkpoint , in contrast to the eastern designation border crossing point (GÜSt) , results from the fact that from the western side the legitimacy of international law as a state border was not recognized. In this regard, after the de facto recognition of the GDR as a state, there was a change from 1972 onwards for the inner-German border, but not for the sector border of Berlin.

Railway border crossing

Border formalities between Soviet and British allies in Marienborn

The border rail traffic on the Braunschweig – Magdeburg railway line, which was originally more important due to the volume of passengers and goods, was handled via the two border stations in Helmstedt and Marienborn. Every train from the east or west had to stop at both stations. The locomotive change between the West German Federal Railroad and the East German Reichsbahn took place in Helmstedt.

The Western Allied interzonal rail traffic to Berlin was also carried out via this border crossing. Such military trains ran several times a day. Army personnel as well as heavy equipment (vehicles, tanks, etc.) were transported. The border clearance of these trains in Marienborn was carried out by Soviet border units.

Dissolution of the border crossing

On November 9, 1989, the evening the Wall came down , Annemarie Reffert and her daughter Juliane crossed the German inner-German border at 9:15 p.m. at the Helmstedt-Marienborn border crossing. This is considered to be the first violation after Günter Schabowski's press conference on the same day about new travel regulations for GDR citizens. In the wake of political changes in the GDR in the fall of 1989, border controls were relaxed considerably in the following years until it completely accounted few months later: Even before the reunification of the border crossing was on 30 June 1990 before the start of the German economic and monetary union closed , exactly 45 years after its construction. The former GDR border clearance facilities near Marienborn have been under monument protection since October 1990 , but the former GDR exit area was demolished for traffic reasons. During the redesign, a motorway service area with parking lots was created before the earlier transition.

The former West German border buildings near Helmstedt were demolished or put to another use.

  • Opening of the border in November 1989

  • Checkpoint Helmstedt after the opening of the border

  • Sculpture La voûte des mains on the former West German side

  • Unused handling terminal in 1990

Memorial of the division of Germany in Marienborn

Entrance to the memorial

On August 13, 1996, the 7 1 ⁄ 2   hectare German Division Marienborn Memorial was opened on the site of the former border crossing point . The operator of the documentation center is the state of Saxony-Anhalt . With free admission, visitors can explore the spacious area with the various facilities such as passport control, car entry, control box exit, the command tower, themselves or as part of guided tours. An exhibition is presented in the former staff building. The memorial site can be visited daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

In the building, the attempted escape of two men with the tanker is shown in the film room. A 29-year-old driver from VEB Minol and a 15-year-old apprentice from VEB Housing Combine, both employed in Magdeburg , tried to break through the border barriers with a tank truck at the GDR border crossing in Marienborn in the direction of Helmstedt. The truck escape on November 21, 1983 failed due to the ram of the roll lock.

The former West German border buildings near Helmstedt were demolished or put to another use. Since 2004, the Hötensleben border monument, about 18 kilometers to the south, with its former border installations over a length of 350 meters, has been part of the memorial. Since December 19, 2011, the memorial with the facilities in Hötensleben has been part of the European cultural heritage .

Joachim Scherrieble was the founding director from 1996. The historian Sascha Möbius headed the memorial from 2011 to 2015 . The cultural scientist Annemarie Susan Baumgartl has been the head of the memorial site since December 2015. The permanent exhibition was updated in 2020. It contains more explanations for younger visitors who do not know the GDR from personal experience.

  • Control bridge

  • Motor vehicle roll lock

  • Compulsory exchange barrack

literature

  • William Durie: The United States Garrison Berlin 1945-1994. Mission Accomplished, Aug 2014, ISBN 978-1-63068-540-9 (English).
  • Martin Kaule: Relics of the State Security. Structural legacies of the MfS. Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-86153-765-6 .
  • Hans-Jürgen Mielke: The Berlin – Helmstedt motorway. Reimer-Verlag 1984, ISBN 3-49600-787-7 .
  • William Durie, Dieter Riedel, Friedrich Jeschonnek: Allies in Berlin 1945–1994. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2007, 2nd edition, ISBN 978-3-8305-0397-2 .

Movies

Web links

Commons : Grenzübergang Helmstedt-Marienborn  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On November 21, 1983 tried to escape with the tanker
  2. ↑ News on European Cultural Heritage Memorial ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Video of the memorial  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.news.de
  3. ^ Marienborn: Exhibition on the division of Germany at ndr.de from July 17, 2020
  4. ↑ Marienborn is supposed to explain German history more at ndr.de on August 19, 2019

Coordinates: 52 ° 13 '8 "  N , 11 ° 3' 34"  E