Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Border Troops of the German Democratic Republic (German: Grenztruppen der DDR) was the border guard of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from 1946 to 1990. The Grenztruppen were the primary force guarding the Berlin Wall and the Inner German border, the GDR's international borders between West Berlin and West Germany respectively.
At their peak, the Grenztruppen had up to 50,000 personnel. [1] East German border guard Konrad Schumann fleeing East Germany, 1961. Around half of the Grenztruppen were conscripts, a lower proportion than in other branches of the East German armed forces. Their political reliability was under especially close scrutiny due to the sensitive ...
A special unit of the Stasi secret police worked covertly within the Grenztruppen, posing as regular border guards, between 1968 and 1985, to weed out potential defectors. [79] One in ten officers and one in thirty enlisted men were said to have been recruited by the Stasi as informers.
In 1976 the head of the GDR Border Guard (German: Chef der Grenztruppen der DDR) proposed to create a new style of medal since the design on the obverse showed an out of date border policeman with an obsolete machine gun. He suggested that the revised medal be presented on the occasion of the 30th Anniversary of the Border Troops of the GDR.
For the border guards, this presented special dangers, as their colleagues were under orders to shoot without warning if an escape attempt was made. The dilemmas they faced were highlighted in the May 1969 defection of a soldier and a non-commissioned officer (NCO) of the Grenztruppen. When the NCO made his escape, the soldier, Jürgen Lange ...
The border was initially manned by the Royal Military Police and the Group of Soviet Occupation Forces In Germany. [1] From 1950 onwards, the East German Grenzpolizei (later the Grenztruppen der DDR ) performed the border control on the eastern side of the checkpoint while the Soviet Army escorted NATO military traffic to and from West Berlin.
At the Spy Museum, Eric Allen, a retired history teacher from Indiana, wore a full-on border guard's NVA Grenztruppen uniform. A six-foot-three former court bailiff, he looked the part. He had set ...
Bavarian Grepo badge. Grepo is the short form of the German word for border police (German: Grenzpolizei).It is usually found in English referring to the Grenztruppen der DDR (Border Troops of the GDR) who guarded the inner German border and the Berlin Wall, but can be used to refer to other border police, such as the former Bayerische Grenzpolizei (Bavarian Border Police), Hessen Grenzpolizei ...