The surveillance of the GDR's sea border
Behind the beach idyll lay a system of border surveillance. From August 1961 to September 1989, 5,636 people attempted to flee the GDR via the western Baltic Sea.
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Die Überwachung der Seegrenze der DDR
Only 913 succeeded, 135 people drowned. These figures show the tragedy of the Baltic Sea escapes, which entailed a high level of risk. Frigate Captain Ingo Pfeiffer's review of 40 years of the “blue border” documents the border regime and its effects on the Baltic Sea refugees.
its effects on the Baltic Sea refugee movement. Involved were the 6th Coastal Border Brigade (GBK), the People's Police and its volunteers, customs, passport control units and the Stasi state security service. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, border surveillance on the GDR Baltic coast also came to an end.
Lecture: Dr. Ingo Pfeiffer, former frigate captain, Wandlitz
(LECTURE IN GERMAN)
Additional information
Meeting point: Conference room DDR Museum Sankt Wolfgang-Str. 2 10178 Berlin
Dates
March 2025
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