On 07/01/2012 22:42, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
wrote in
:

On 06/01/2012 10:57, Paul Rigg wrote:
I think his point was, and I think he is right, that the DDR
authorities allowed anyone to cross the wall who was either not one
of their own nationals or a national of another country (ie the
Eastern Block) with whom they had an agreement to stop travel.

Did Soviet officers often cross into West Berlin for the day?

It happened. According to the Four Power Agreements soldiers of all four
countries were allowed to patrol in any of the four sectors, and that
was enforced until 1990. I was on day trips in East Berlin maybe a dozen
times before 1989, and I think I saw French, UK or US soldiers in
uniform there every time, doing sightseeing, or shopping, or whatever. I
remember seeing a Soviet patrol in uniform in West Berlin only once or
twice. And guess what, they went shopping.

West Berlin was technically not a part of the Bundesrepublik, IIRC,
although its citizens did have West German passports.

Yes, but not West German ID cards. Other differences were that no West
German military activity of any kind was allowed there, and thus no
conscription. Which is why many young men from West Germany chose to
stay there. Flight connections from West Berlin to West Germany could
only be operated by US, UK or French carriers, which is why for example
BA (earlier BEA) had domestic German routes. The budget airline
"Deutsche BA" who continued into the 1990s was a leftover from this era.
The still existing "Air Berlin" is too, they were originally a nominal
US airline, even though Berlin based. And West Berlin had seperate
stamps.


I also remember hearing that West Germans who relocated to West Berlin
also received some sort of tax incentive. Nicht wahr?