West Berliners were no longer able to travel to the eastern part of the city after the Wall was built on August 13, 1961. In the years that followed, the Wall only opened to West Berliners as part of temporary arrangements around the New Year's holidays.
From 1972 onward, there were five so-called offices for visiting and travel matters in West Berlin for the purpose of applying for travel to East Berlin. In these offices, West and East Berlin employees worked in two separate areas.
Every day, the East Berlin employees of Working Group XVII of the Ministry for State Security were driven in a Barkas from Hohenschönhausen to their workplace in the Western "operational area." All operations around these visitors' offices were monitored by the Stasi.
The special exhibition shows historical photographic material, Stasi surveillance technology, parts of the employees' uniforms, original application forms and scale models that the Stasi made of each visitors' office.
Additional information
We do apologize that the following information is currently only available in German.
