Folie 1

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Two Grenzer patrol the Wall, keeping a watchful
eye on the decadent capitalists on the Western
side. The Grenzpolizei Border Police, or
Grenzer were a special corps, originally NVA,
later directly under the control of the Ministry
of Defence, established to patrol the DDRs
borders in order to stop East Germans from
escaping to the West. There were also
Volkspolizei Vopos, the regular police and
Transportpolizei Trapos, one of whose tasks was
to ensure that the transport system did not
provide a ready means of exit fom the DDR. The
comment made by Peter Tannhoff in his account of
his military service, Sprutz, that the DDR was in
fact a giant prison, is a just one.
2
Grenzer inspect the documents of an elderly
West-Berliner crossing to the East.
3
Another pair of apparently very bored
dog-handlers or is it the photographer who is
bothering them? The dog has no such inhibitions,
and is making its feelings amply clear.
4
At the Chausseestrasse crossing-point, a French
border-guard gazes across the painted white line
at his East German counterpart. The Wall was
actually built five metres inside DDR territory.
The guard could easily have escaped to the West,
except that the DDR still had power over his
family.
DDR Deutsche Demokratische Republik, the
official name for East Germany.
5
The same crossing-point. The car is entering East
Berlin. Grenzer tended to be surly
over-friendliness towards Westerners was regarded
with great suspicion by Communist authorities,
and could be career-destroying. Notice how this
Grenzer folds his arms and pointedly turns his
back towards the photographer in both pictures.
6
The lighter side of the Wall A sentry converses
smilingly with a small boy looking through his
binoculars. Not even totalitarian leaders of the
type who ruled the DDR were able to eliminate the
normal instincts and interactions of human nature.
7
The many and varied duties of a DDR border-guard
The length and varied terrain of the Wall
necessitated many different types of
border-duties for the Grenzer, in order to
protect DDR citizens from escaping into the
decadent arms of the waiting West. Here are a few
of them 1 A fast patrol-boat on the Spree.
Some of the sector-borders were canals and
rivers. 2 Patrolling a wooded area of the
Wall. Note the character-istic peaked,
green-banded uniform cap, marking this man as a
Grenzer. 3 The view from inside one of the big
guard-towers. 4 Vigilance on a wharf at
Berlins Osthafen. 5 Guarding an U-Bahn
underground station in Berlin. 6 Keeping
watch over a hole broken through the Wall by
escapees in a vehicle. 7 Patrolling a
bridge-crossing over a river or lake.
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The headquarters of the feared Stasi Ministerium
für Staatssicherheit - Ministry for State
Security, the DDRs secret police, in
Normannenstrasse, East Berlin. One in five East
Germans is believed to have supplied them with
information. The civilian wearing a hat at the
extreme left of the photograph, inset, is without
doubt a Stasi agent.