Passport control unit
The passport control units ( PKE ) were part of the Ministry for State Security (MfS) of the GDR and were subordinate to Department VI . These units were gradually erected from 1962 after the Wall was built. They took over the passport control and search at the border crossing points (GÜST) previously carried out by the customs administration of the GDR . For camouflage, these employees did their duty in the uniforms of the GDR border troops (GT).
history
After the construction of the wall and the establishment of border crossing points (GÜST), passport and customs control was gradually restructured from 1962. The main department of Passport Control and Search (HPF) of the Ministry for State Security ( MfS ) were subordinate to: the Berlin border crossing points , as well as those at Berlin-Schönefeld Airport and the border crossing at Rudower Chaussee. In districts of the GDR with border crossing points, the Stasi district administrations were responsible for this area. However, the Berlin main department issued all important orders . In 1970 the name was changed to Main Department VI (HA VI) with a simultaneous structural change through the inclusion of the areas of travel security and customs defense. The previous passport control and search (APF) departments were given the name Department 6 .
assignment
GDR road border crossings
The basic task of the passport control unit was to control and monitor all cross-border travel at all border crossings in the GDR, including the border crossing points to Berlin (West) . It had to be ensured that the state border could only be crossed by people who were in possession of the required entry or exit documents. The customs control was carried out by the employees of the customs administration of the GDR .
GDR airports
First of all, employee access to the non-public part of the site had to be secured and passport control carried out in the airport building. The control of the entry and exit of all passengers as well as all movements of people on the airport premises was the responsibility of the State Security.
Every movement of an aircraft at GDR airports with a destination from or to a so-called NSW country (this also included the Comecon- associated Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ) was accompanied from the opening to the closing of the doors. The responsible employee of the passport control unit drove to the machine in his police vehicle in uniform of the border troops of the GDR and monitored all processes such as alighting, cleaning, loading and boarding of the passengers.
Special transfer from Schönefeld to West Berlin
From 1985 there was direct traffic from Berlin-Schönefeld Airport from the newly established transit area (today Terminal B) with a bus to West Berlin to the radio tower , at night only to the border crossing Waltersdorfer Chaussee / Rudower Chaussee. The employees of the passport control unit escorted this bus from the airport to the border crossing, around one kilometer from the airport.
Special features of the passport control unit at Schönefeld Airport
In each train of the passport control unit in Schönefeld, eight to ten men were specially trained in counter-terrorism techniques ( hostage rescue , house-to-house fighting , precision shooting and combat diving ) so that immediate measures could be taken in the event of a terrorist threat, up to the competent forces of the Ministry for State Security , the main department XXII , arrived at the scene (a corresponding service unit of HA XXII was permanently stationed in Schönefeld).
Since Schönefeld Airport was also a hub for a number of intelligence operations, transfers of couriers and other operationally relevant persons, the employees deployed there represented the elite of the passport control units of HA VI not only because of the additional anti-terrorist training of individuals, but also because they regularly go through human trafficking and transfers of persons working operationally for the Soviet KGB were informed. This was usually done by naming the legendary identity in advance or with an agreed transfer number, which the traveler gave to the employee of the passport control unit, so that he did not even find out the identity of the traveler (agent, courier or target person), as he did not Had to show papers.
Transit trains
Trains between West Berlin and the federal territory were always provided in the Berlin-Rummelsburg ( East Berlin ) railway works . The first "internal control of the means of transport" was carried out here by the employees of the GDR transport police (Trapo). These then usually accompanied the train to the Berlin-Ostbahnhof station , where the sleeping and dining cars were filled. The transport police left the train, the Stasi passport control unit got on and drove with them to Berlin-Friedrichstrasse station . At the latest there, another train control was carried out, then all Stasi employees left the train and the travelers (who had already left the GDR for customs and passport purposes) could board. The train then drove into West Berlin and returned to GDR territory via the Griebnitzsee or Staaken stations . Here the employees of the passport control unit got on and carried out another one-off passport control on the moving train. The passenger trains were accompanied by a control group of the transport police, which had to guarantee the safety of the train and the passengers and kept the connection to their office by radio. During a brief stop at the German-German border , the employees of the State Security and the transport police left the train.
In addition, there was the passport control of the personnel of the freight trains as well as the transit traffic between the Federal Republic of Germany and Berlin (West) by sea.
criticism
Ex-employee today
The unification agreement of 1990 provided under “A III Annex I Chapter XIX” that former employees of the Ministry of State Security would have to resign from the public service if they were unreasonable due to their work in the GDR. Nevertheless, the ARD magazine Kontraste stated in its broadcast on July 2, 1991 that more than a thousand former members of the Ministry for State Security had been taken over by the Federal Border Police. Hansjörg Geiger , then director of the special commissioner for Stasi files (→ main article: BStU ), confirmed that checks for human rights violations by specific people were not possible due to the lack of documents. The committee of inquiry, represented here in the Kontraste broadcast by Karin Litzba from the district of Oelsnitz in the Vogtland, stated that the decisive documents were removed from the personnel files of the employees of the passport control unit of the district mentioned in good time.
The journalist Roland Jahn told the Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior , Eduard Lintner , that the security of the Federal Republic today in the eastern part is often ensured by former members of the Ministry for State Security.
Arrest requirements
Ex-Stasi major Dieter Dostmann stated in the 1991 Kontraste program that there were daily, voluntary target specifications for the number of arrests of travelers that had been met at his border crossing point as part of a competition.
See also
- Identity card (GDR)
- Border crossing Helmstedt-Marienborn / Checkpoint Alpha
- Dreilinden-Drewitz border crossing / Bravo checkpoint ; Federal motorway 115
- Friedrichstrasse / Checkpoint Charlie border crossing ; Palace of Tears
- Fatalities at the Berlin Wall
- GDR border guards died
- Interzonal train
literature
- Roger Engelmann, Bernd Florath , Helge Heidemeyer, Daniela Münkel, Arno Polzin, Walter Süß : The MfS Lexicon. 3. updated edition, Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-86153-900-1 , bstu.de .
- Hans-Dieter Behrendt: Hello, GDR passport control. GNN-Verlag, Schkeuditz 2008, ISBN 978-3-89819-243-9 .
- Jürgen Ritter; Peter Joachim Lapp: The limit. A German building. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86153-465-5 .
- Friedrich Christian Delius; Peter Joachim Lapp: Transit West Berlin. Experiences in between. Ch. Links Verlag, Berlin 2000, ISBN 978-3-86153-198-2 .
- Bernd Kuhlmann: Trains through the wall and barbed wire. Society for Transport Policy and Railways e. V., Berlin 1998, ISBN 3-89218-050-4 .
Web links
- MfS-Lexikon: passport control unit
- Collection of original documents in the Stasi media library
- Inventory overview of main department VI (passport control, tourism, interhotel) of the MfS on bstu.de
- Monika Tantzscher: Main Department VI: Border Controls, Travel and Tourist Traffic MfS Handbook, Part III / 14 (PDF file; 1.8 MB)
- “Passport control unit at the Heinrich-Heine-Straße border crossing point” on bstu.de
- Memorial Checkpoint Bravo eV ( Memento from December 4, 2004 in the Internet Archive )