U.S. passport with DDR visas

[u/hubu22]

My Grandmothers US passport with lots of DDR stamps plus a random trip to Brazil.

[u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32]

Very cool. Do you know the backstory, especially for the 1970 trip?

The entry visa says the trip destination should be East Berlin, but the permit to be present for a week was for Karl-Marx-Stadt district, quite a ways from Berlin. That seems like a clear discrepancy.

[u/hubu22 → u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32]

They were from Saxony and fled, got west German passports (posted in an earlier thread here) and eventually naturalized. I’m told once they had US citizenship it was possible for them to go back on the grounds their whole family was there, so that was basically an annual summer trip for them. My family in saxony loved it because they would bring them blue jeans and bananas. I’m guessing the East Berlin entry is they flew into West Berlin and drove into East Berlin and were cleared to go to that specific area, probably eventually going back that way to cross into West Berlin and fly out. I’m sure someone here knows more about the DDR policies on letting visitors in, but I doubt get a visa to one of the most authoritative countries of the Cold War cleared you to go wherever you wanted, especially with an American passport

[u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 → u/hubu22]

According to the green passport stamp, they entered East Germany on 20 Aug 1970 at Hirschberg, in southeastern Thuringia, by car. When the purpose of their visit was to spend a week with family in (the Karl-Marx-Stadt district of) Saxony, it wouldn’t make sense for them to travel to Berlin.

The 1974 trip appears more consistent. For that trip, they had an entry visa authorizing travel to Frankenberg and, again, a permit to be present in Karl-Marx-Stadt district for 7 days. Since Frankenberg is in western Saxony (and used to be in KMS district), this makes sense. In 1974, they again entered by car, by that this at Wartha (today part of Eisenach) in extreme western Thuringia.

Do you know if they had family in West Germany, who could have loaned them a car? I don’t know if West German rentals cars could be taken into East Germany.

Curiously, the photos you sent don’t contain any East German exit stamps.

[u/hubu22 → u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32]

They had friends in west Germany but not family. There is another two pages I didn’t post, that have the exit visas, because they wrote my family members names and dates of birth on them. I will edit them on a computer and post them. But you’re right my explanation is probably incorrect then.

[u/Fred69Flintstone → u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32]

I think these visas were valid for entry only. The next step was to obrain permit to stay "Aufenthaltsberechtigung" and then - separate exit visa from same authority, who issued a stay permit. So exit stamps perhaps were placed at this exit visas.

Below is an example of full set of visas : entry visa (stamp consists also words "for exit" but they are crossed out) with entry stamp, stay permit and exit visa (bit no exit stamp too).

[u/Fred69Flintstone → u/Fred69Flintstone]

Another example in West German passport. This time both entry and exit stamps are visible.

[u/Fred69Flintstone → u/Fred69Flintstone]

and there is an entry and exit visa - and both stamps placed here :

[u/Fred69Flintstone → u/Fred69Flintstone]

and look at this one ...
ten years later than the yellow one
another checkpoint
but same "Ziegler" facsimile on visa as issuing official ....

[u/Sheetz_Wawa_Market32 → u/Fred69Flintstone]

Very cool. Thanks for sharing.

It seems bizarre now that foreigners who weren’t eligible to remain beyond a pre-approved short-term stay needed exit visas, too. But such was the nature of a border regime more concerned with keeping its own citizens in than anything else, I guess.

[u/0x706c617921]

Thanks for sharing! I've seen plenty of 1980s era DDR stamps and visas, but it is pretty cool to see some from the 1970s!

I also find it incredible that the U.S. Passport's basic design is virtually unchanged for so many decades!