Travel system for visa-free travel
The travel annex for visa-free travel (document PM 105) was a document that was necessary to enable citizens of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to travel privately to several countries in socialist countries. It had to be applied for at the registration offices of the German People's Police .
The travel system (coll. Visa ) was not required from 1972 onwards for GDR citizens to travel to the ČSSR and the VR Poland (until 1980). Here the identity card was sufficient to pass the state border.
history
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the GDR concluded agreements with several countries on visa-free travel. The agreement was concluded with Poland in November 1971 and visa-free traffic was introduced at the beginning of 1972, with the ČSSR on January 15, 1972. In principle, there were similar agreements with the other socialist countries. On November 23, 1971, it was agreed between the GDR and Romania that there was no longer any need for mutual invitations from citizens.
However, these agreements did not include any travel options. Spontaneous trips abroad were only possible for GDR citizens to the ČSSR and until 1980 to Poland. The identity card was sufficient as a travel document. This regulation was lifted for trips to Poland as a result of Solidarność's strengthening in October 1980.
There was a separate approval procedure for private trips to the other socialist countries of Hungary , Romania , Bulgaria , the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People's Republic . As was common in traffic with the ČSSR before 1972, a so-called “travel system for visa-free travel” had to be applied for at the registration offices of the People's Police.
Until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, nothing fundamental changed in this practice.
Application process
In practice, the application for trips to these countries was different. Traveling to Hungary, Romania or Bulgaria was comparatively easy. Citizens of the GDR had to apply in good time (at least about two weeks before the start of the journey) to the responsible reporting office of the People's Police. A travel destination with address (address of a person visited or a hotel, sufficient simple information such as "campground") had to be given, as well as the intended duration of the trip and the countries to be passed.
The travel request could be refused by the authorities without giving reasons. However, trips to Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania were mostly approved (provided the authorities did not find the applicant negative). However, there was no legal guarantee.
For trips to the Soviet Union, either an organized trip through a travel agency, a private trip on a pre-planned route in pre-booked hotels or an invitation from a host certified by the Soviet authorities was necessary. Individual trips there were not welcome.
The travel facility (with the exception of transit travel) was not intended for private trips to Poland during the times of restricted travel freedom there in the 1980s. There were special forms for this. For business trips to socialist countries, a passport was required instead of the travel facility.
document
The travel document issued by the People's Police was an A6 form and was valid together with the identity card, a passport was not required.
It entitles the holder of the ID card “ once to ” “ the USSR, Hungarian VR, VR Bulgaria, SR Romania, Mongolian VR ” (countries other than the target country deleted) “ via VR Poland, USSR, ČSSR, Hungarian VR, SR Romania, VR Bulgaria "(Countries other than those crossed through)" by motor vehicle "( deleted when traveling by train, plane or bicycle)" to leave and stay in this country for up to "(number inserted)" days ".
The length of stay was only set for the destination country, not for the countries passed through on the way. There were also no further restrictions on the travel route on the document. The travel annex was usually valid for half a year. Entry and exit notices were stamped on the back when crossing the border.
Colloquially, the travel facility was often referred to as a visa . However, it differed from an entry visa to a third country in that it was not issued by that country but by the GDR. It was also not a real GDR exit visa, as it was possible to leave the GDR to the ČSSR without this document; The travel facility was only required when crossing the border further into third countries. The border control organs of the respective countries worked together with the GDR.
The travel annex had to be presented to the state bank for the exchange of GDR marks in foreign currencies prior to departure . Only when traveling to the Soviet Union and Poland was the GDR mark freely exchangeable, in the other countries the exchange rate was limited to 30 (ČSSR 40 marks per day for trips lasting several days). In 1988, the maximum amount that could be exchanged for trips to Hungary was limited to about twelve daily rates (374 marks).
particularities
The GDR authorities set the days of stay in the destination country on the travel facility; however, the number of days spent in countries on the move was not given.
This procedure led to the fact that individual trips to the Soviet Union were possible if the Soviet Union was specified as the country on the way when traveling to Romania or Bulgaria. This was also used for travel far away from the local transit routes. At the end of the 1980s, these travelers exchanged experiences under the unofficial motto: “ Unrecognized by Freundesland ”.
During the period of the strongest restrictions on private travel to Poland, especially in the first half of the 1980s, the travel facility was sometimes used to enable travel to Poland by specifying Poland as a transit country.
literature
- Ruth Leiserowitz : Unrecognized by Freundesland. In: Michael Rauhut , Thomas Kochan (Ed.): Bye bye, Lübben City. Blues freaks, tramps and hippies in the GDR. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89602-602-X , pp. 134-142.
- Tilo Köhler: Once to Varna and back. In: Michael Rauhut, Thomas Kochan (Ed.): Bye bye, Lübben City. Blues freaks, tramps and hippies in the GDR. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89602-602-X , pp. 296-304.
Web links
- U. Holger: Prevented free swimmer. (with a picture of the back of a travel system) on einestags.spiegel.de
Individual evidence
- ^ Chronicle of the year 1971. jugendopposition.de (Federal Agency for Civic Education / Robert Havemann Society), accessed on April 3, 2017 .
- ↑ Illustration of a travel system to the ČSSR from 1967. Retrieved on December 23, 2009 .
- ^ Text on a travel annex from 1988.
- ↑ Ilko-Sascha Kowalczuk : Endgame. The 1989 revolution in the GDR . CH Beck Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-58357-5 , p. 183.
- ^ Christoph Dieckmann : Warsaw Jazz Jamboree: Pilgrimage stories. Presentation on the conference " Jazz in the GDR - Jazz in Eastern Europe ", Eisenach, Haus Hainstein, October 9, 2005, pp. 10/11. (digitized ; PDF; 51 kB)
