Solo Travel East Germany: DDR Customs Inspection and Site of the Heavily Guarded DDR Border 2024

Solo Travel East Germany: DDR Customs Inspection and Site of the Heavily Guarded DDR Border 2024

Saturday, June 22, 2024. Today, I drove from Wolfsburg to Aachen. Since most of the day was spent driving, I could only visit two places today. The places I visited are as follows: Number 1, Former East German Checkpoint. It is where the East German border customs used to be, inspecting cars transiting between West Germany and West Berlin. For those who are too young to remember, West Berlin was inside East Germany. Number 2, Former West and East German Border. It is an area that used to be the border between West and East Germany. It was left intact after East Germany collapsed and Germany is now one. There were equipment preventing escapes from East Germany to West Germany. Barbed wires, guard towers, and other devices. Enjoy the video. Good morning from Wolfsburg. I had planned to go to Poland, but the car rental agency would not allow the super fancy car in Poland. So, I visited the Volkswagen Museum and Autostadt in Wolfsburg instead. Here’s a Polish joke. A guy walks in and askes for Polish sausage. The clerk looks up and asks, "Are you Polish?" Clearly offended, he shoots back, "So if I order French fries, would you assume I’m French, or maybe if I order Swiss cheese…" The clerk interrupted, "No, no, it’s just that you’re in a shoe store." This is how I check to make sure I am not buying sparkling water. I found that to be odd. Drinking age here is 18 years old. And alcohol is cheap here. Yet, it is locked up. Former Border Crossing Between West Germany and East Germany. That was where the East German customs inspected cars transiting from West Germany to West Berlin, employing over a thousand proles. At that time, West Berlin was an island smack dab in the middle of East German territory. A lot of West Germans found human smuggling to be a profitable venture, usually netting $10,000 to $15,000 a pop. However, lengthy prison sentences awaited those who got caught. American cars were given special attention by the East German customs due to their spacious nature and the potential to hide a few. The road through East Germany to West Berlin was a heavily policed 110-mile route with a ridiculously low speed limit of 100 kilometers an hour. The East German Volkspolizei used speed traps to nab the capitalists and extract as much Western currency as possible. The proletarians working in customs were rewarded handsomely. Perhaps it was because they could see how great the West Germans had it. And the East German government didn’t like people escaping. Consequently, the employees were paid handsomely. They were also given generous pensions. They also could take their families to government-sponsored vacations. In return, they had to be loyal to the regime. The museum had statements from people who were arrested. There were also statements from the higher-ups of the border guards. Former West and East German Border. After the fall of Hitler’s Reich in 1945, a demarcation line was drawn. British troops manned the west and Soviet troops manned the east. Initially, there were no means to prevent escapes. The Soviets believed communism in East Germany would be successful, turning the capitalist West Germans green with envy. Unfortunately, the opposite happened, and four million moved out. That represented nearly a sixth of East Germany’s population. To prevent further loss, East Germany began to fortify its borders in the 1950s with barbed wires, attack dogs, land mines, and towers manned by soldiers. In the meantime, the East Germans were told it was to prevent a possible invasion by the capitalist Americans. In Berlin, the Soviet sector was known for cheap labor before the Berlin Wall was built. A West Berliner left his Volkswagen Bug at a mechanic’s shop in East Berlin, then the wall was built literally overnight in 1961. Everybody was caught off guard, nobody saw it coming. He was stuck in West Berlin and could not get into East Berlin. In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell, and East Germany collapsed. The West Berliner returned to see that his car was still there. During the Berlin Wall’s existence, Some 75,000 were caught trying to escape and imprisoned. It has been estimated over one million visited the border each year. There were several lookouts in West Germany to look into East Germany. Most were frequented by organized tours. The East Germans would watch the lookouts and document the visits there. They even set up hiding places and could eavesdrop on the guided tours. The transcripts were discovered in the files of the feared East German state police, the Stasi. I finally got to see it up close. I always thought it was made out of iron. After all, it looked fancy up there. Turns out it was made out of fiberglass. Imagine my surprise. Aachen, Germany. The Romans 2,000 years ago began using thermal hot springs here. They built a large spa with space for 6,000 soldiers. Eventually, Aachen became an elegant spa town that was visited by the likes of Peter the Great and Voltaire. As a spa city, Aachen can legally change its name to Bad Aachen, with Bad meaning Bath in German and reserved for spa cities, but it would lose its position at the top of the alphabetical list, so it is still named Aachen, not Bad Aachen. By the way, that’s $7.50 per gallon for unleaded. Plans for tomorrow are as follows: Three Country Point of Belgium, Germany, Netherlands. Aachen Cathedral in Germany. Concrete Village of Amsterdam. Huis te Vraag Cemetery, an abandoned cemetery in Amsterdam. Museum Tot Zover about funerals around the world in Amsterdam. How to park cheaply in Amsterdam. This video is the third of my 20-day vacation in Europe. Feel free to subscribe for the daily updates while I travel.

Saturday, June 22, 2024.

Today, I drove from Wolfsburg to Aachen.

Since most of the day was spent driving, I could only visit two places today.

The places I visited are as follows.

Number 1, Former East German Checkpoint. It is where the East German border customs used to be, inspecting cars transiting between West Germany and West Berlin. For those who are too young to remember, West Berlin was inside East Germany.

Number 2, Former West and East German Border. It is an area that used to be the border between West and East Germany. It was left intact after East Germany collapsed and Germany is now one. There were equipment preventing escapes from East Germany to West Germany. Barbed wires, guard towers, and other devices.

Enjoy the video.

00:12 Summary of Today’s Travel in Video
02:06 Former East German Border Checkpoint, Marienborn, Germany
03:57 Former West and East German Border, Eichsfeld, Germany
07:04 Price of Gasoline in Germany, Aachen, Germany
07:10 Plans for Tomorrow