Abstract
In East Germany (GDR) the aim of total control of society occupied both: those on the ‘heights of command’ and the various ‘organs’ of the ruling party (SED) and state. In this pursuit efforts to strictly regulate any passage of the border of state (Staatsgrenze) had a very high priority. The formal closure of the border to the ‘West’ (on 13 August 1961) marked an ultimate step placing border control among the pivotal political necessities of the GDR. In this vein, the actual staffing of the remaining checkpoints by employees of the Ministry of State Security (MfS) underlined the dominant logic of encompassing surveillance and intervention, whether concealed or openly. This article focuses on one location at the centre of the ‘capital of the GDR’, the check point: Grenzübergangsstelle (GÜSt) Bahnhof Friedrichstraße. The goal is an inspection of the actual activities of the border guards: how did they ‘do it’? The spectrum ranges from the physical and architectural settings to the locks and the protocols of control to the practices of the guards who checked (and decided) on personal identities. To what extent were rank and file in the checking booths (and behind the scenes) in charge of opening or closing the door? Who, in the last instance, allowed or denied access or exit? Certainly, customs control and related checks of personal belongings of visitors or travellers were an integral part of the ‘Grenzregime’; yet they are not part of this investigation. More generally: does the analysis of the everyday of control as ‘work’ provide insights into both the intensities and the duration of domination in the GDR? Is GÜSt Bahnhof Friedrichstraße also a symbol of the limits if not the demise of (the work of) domination ‘in the colours of the GDR’?
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