Pass Agreement

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Protocol of the pass agreement of December 17, 1963 with the signatures of Erich Wendt (left) and Horst Korber (right)

The pass agreements were agreements between the Senate of Berlin (West) and the government of the GDR . After the Wall was built , East and West Berliners were without personal contact for 28 months due to the Cold War between the two German states.

On December 17, 1963, the negotiator of the Senate Administration in West Berlin, Horst Korber, and the GDR State Secretary Erich Wendt signed a pass protocol , the first pass agreement. This was followed by three more by 1966. Secretary of State Michael Kohl was the chief negotiator for the GDR in 1965/1966 . After the expiry of the last pass agreement at Whitsun 1966, West Berliners could only enter East Berlin from October 1966 due to the decision of a hardship office that had existed since 1964 in rare “urgent family matters ”.

The four-power agreement on Berlin (signed on September 3, 1971) entered into force on June 3, 1972 when the final four-power protocol was signed. From then on, the “ Certificate of Eligibility for Receiving a GDR Visa ” enabled West Berliners to visit East Berlin and the GDR at any time.

prehistory

Passes with an application form

Immediately after the Wall was built (from August 13, 1961), the GDR had set up pass stations at S-Bahn stations in the west of the city that were administered by the Reichsbahn . There, West Berliners were given permission to visit the eastern part of the city. In an instruction from the Berlin police chief on August 26, 1961, however, the "establishment and operation of offices for issuing residence permits for citizens of West Berlin to enter the Soviet sector on the soil of West Berlin was prohibited". This instruction was issued because toleration of these permits would have meant de facto recognition of the measures of August 13, and thus indirectly recognition of the GDR, which the Hallstein doctrine did not provide. The assertion of one's own position on status issues was therefore given priority over humanitarian issues - visiting family members beyond the wall. It was not until the so-called “December Agreement ” of 1963 that West Berliners were able to travel to East Berlin again with a pass - initially limited to the period over the Christmas holidays and the turn of the year . East Berliners were not allowed to go the other way for the same reasons why the wall was built.

The Deputy Prime Minister of the GDR, Alexander Abusch ( SED ), had previously stated in a letter to the Governing Mayor of West Berlin, Willy Brandt ( SPD ), on December 5, 1963 , that he was ready to issue passes in order to visit relatives again to West Berlin citizens in the east of the city. 28 months after the division of the city, it was now permitted to visit relatives from East Berlin between December 19, 1963 and January 5, 1964. The pass agreement, which came about with the approval of the Federal Government ( Cabinet Erhard I ) and the Western powers , was the starting point for a new policy in Germany . Humanitarian considerations were thus given a certain priority over questions of status . Egon Bahr , then press officer and confidante of Brandt , summed this up as “change through rapprochement”.

In total, around 700,000 West Berliners made around 1.2 million visits to East Berlin at the turn of the year 1963/1964. They endured long waiting times when filing an application.

At that time there was neither a mutual recognition of state institutions between the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic nor official contacts between authorities in West and East Berlin. Therefore, one was faced with the problem of which personnel should be used to fill the pass points to be set up in West Berlin . Police members and comparable personnel from the GDR were not welcome in West Berlin because of the importance of such steps for Berlin status. Apparent employees of the Deutsche Post were used to solve this problem . These were employees of the Ministry for State Security who were legendary as postal workers in the West - that is, provided with postal uniforms and IDs . With this solution, both sides were able to save face. The west prevented official representatives from the east, the east was able to use state employees to issue permits.

Three more pass agreements with the GDR followed by 1966:

  • The 2nd pass agreement on September 24, 1964, from October 30 to November 12, 1964, over Christmas / New Year 1964/1965 as well as Easter and Pentecost 1965. In the first visit period in October / November around 600,000, in the second over Christmas / New Year 821,000, in all four a total of 2.4 million passes issued. From November 1964, the GDR required a minimum exchange rate for West Berliners of 3 DM per day for the first time .
  • the 3rd permit agreement on November 25, 1965. In the period from December 18, 1965 to January 2, 1966, around 820,000 permits were issued; and
  • the 4th pass agreement on March 7, 1966 for Easter and Pentecost (April 7–20, 1966 and from May 23 to June 5, 1966)

On July 29, 1966, the negotiations on the 5th permit agreement in Berlin failed because the GDR refused to re-introduce the so-called severability clause - both sides found that no agreement could be reached on the names of places, authorities and offices.

In December 1966, negotiations for a Christmas visit agreement failed because the GDR now demanded formal negotiations with the Senate. Until 1972 there were no opportunities for West Berliners to visit East Berlin.

The pass office was retained for urgent family matters, i.e. cases of hardship. You did not need a pass for business trips, trips to the Leipzig trade fair or for trips at the invitation of official GDR authorities.

Four power agreement

The Four Power Agreement on Berlin of 1971 and the Transport Treaty of October 17, 1972 later replaced the previous regulation of passenger transport. Now it was again possible for the residents of West Berlin to visit not only relatives, but also acquaintances in the eastern part of the city and also in the entire GDR after having been granted a “ certificate of entitlement to receive a visa ”. Purely tourist entries were thus also possible.

Others

In 2002 Deutschlandradio produced the original documentary audio play Apparat Herz , in which only archive recordings of the RIAS ' daily "special broadcasts on pass issues" were used during the first phase in the winter of 1963/1964 - mainly calls from citizens with the lead moderator Hanns -Peter Herz , as well as Joachim Jauer and Ruprecht Kurzrock on the details of the procedural rules and the situation at the border crossings.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.chronik-der-mauer.de
  2. ↑ a b Chronicle 1966
  3. ^ Script and direction: Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel from the Rimini Protokoll group
  4. ↑ Excerpt from the Heart Apparatus