(Romanian Communist Party)
PKSh
Partia Komuniste e Shqiperisë (Albanian Communist Party)
PKWN
Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego (Polish Committee of National Liberation)
POW
Prisoner of war
PPSh
Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë (Albanian Workers’ Party)
PSL
Polski Stronnictwo Ludowe (Polish Christian Democrat agrarian party)
PZPR
Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (Polish United Workers’ Party, i.e. Communist Party)
RAF
Royal Air Force
RBP
Resort Bezpieczenstwa Publicznego (Polish Department of Public Security)
RHSA
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Chief Administration of Third Reich Security)
RIAS
Rundfunk im Amerikanischen Sektor (US-financed propaganda station in West Berlin)
RTRP
Rzad Tymczasowy Rzeczyoospolitej Polskiej (Provisional Government of Poland)
SB (MSW)
Słuzba Bezpieczenstwa Ministerstwa Spraw Wewnetrznych (Polish Security Service of Ministry of Internal Affairs)
SDECE
Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionage (French intelligence service)
SDP
Sozialistische Demokratische Partei (German Social Democratic Party)
SED
Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (East German Communist Party)
SHAPE
Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe
ShIK
Shërbimi Informativ Kombëtar (Albanian successor to Sigurimi)
ShISh
Shërbimi Informativ Shtetëror (successor to ShIK)
SIE
Serviciul de Informatii Externe (Romanian post-Communist intelligence service)
Sigint
Signals intelligence (electronic eavesdropping)
SIS
Secret Intelligence Service
SOE
Special Operations Executive
SRI
Serviciul Rôman de Informatii (Romanian post-Communist security service)
SSR
Soviet socialist republic
Stasi
Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (East German Ministry of State Security)
StB
Státní Bezpecnost / Státna Bezpecnost (Czechoslovakian State Security service)
SWT
Sektor für Wissenschaft und Technik (HVA Section for technological espionage)
TVO
Trudovo-Vazpritatelni Obshchezhitiya (Bulgarian gulag)
UB
Urzad Bezpieczenstwa (Polish state security)
UPA
Ukraïnska Povstanska Armiya (Ukrainian underground army)
ZAIG
Zentrale Auswertungs und Informationsgruppe (evaluation department of HVA)
1
T HROUGH A G LASS D ARKLY
Each year, 3 October is a German national holiday known as der Tag der deutschen Einheit – the day of German Unity. It celebrates the reunification of the country in 1989 after forty-four years of being split in two by the front line of the Cold War. The date is not an exact anniversary of any particular event, but was carefully chosen to avoid reminding people of embarrassing events in recent German history.
On 3 October 2008 several thousand people were celebrating the reunification at what had been the border crossing-point between Marienborn in the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Helmstedt in the Federal Republic when the country was divided roughly north to south by the Iron Curtain after the Second World War. Living conditions to the east of the ‘inner German frontier’ were so grim under the neo-Stalinist government implanted by, and controlled from, Moscow that a total of 3.5 million GDR citizens fled to the West between the end of the war in 1945 and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. 1
By 1952 the population haemorrhage threatened the economic survival of Stalin’s German puppet state and the green border was made increasingly escape-proof by barbed wire, watch-towers, minefields, searchlights, trip-wires connected to locked-off machine guns and SM-70 Claymore-type mines with a lethal range of 25m. There were also stretches where attack dogs roamed free and the foot patrols of border guards had orders to shoot to kill – the infamous Schiessbefehl that cost so many lives.
★★★
To the many thousand troops of the Western Allies who drove along the autobahn to Berlin during the Cold War, the Marienborn–Helmstedt crossing was known as Checkpoint Able; Baker was at the other end of the autobahn, where it entered West Berlin; the more famous Checkpoint Charlie was on
PKSh
Partia Komuniste e Shqiperisë (Albanian Communist Party)
PKWN
Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego (Polish Committee of National Liberation)
POW
Prisoner of war
PPSh
Partia e Punës e Shqipërisë (Albanian Workers’ Party)
PSL
Polski Stronnictwo Ludowe (Polish Christian Democrat agrarian party)
PZPR
Polska Zjednoczona Partia Robotnicza (Polish United Workers’ Party, i.e. Communist Party)
RAF
Royal Air Force
RBP
Resort Bezpieczenstwa Publicznego (Polish Department of Public Security)
RHSA
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Chief Administration of Third Reich Security)
RIAS
Rundfunk im Amerikanischen Sektor (US-financed propaganda station in West Berlin)
RTRP
Rzad Tymczasowy Rzeczyoospolitej Polskiej (Provisional Government of Poland)
SB (MSW)
Słuzba Bezpieczenstwa Ministerstwa Spraw Wewnetrznych (Polish Security Service of Ministry of Internal Affairs)
SDECE
Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionage (French intelligence service)
SDP
Sozialistische Demokratische Partei (German Social Democratic Party)
SED
Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands (East German Communist Party)
SHAPE
Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers in Europe
ShIK
Shërbimi Informativ Kombëtar (Albanian successor to Sigurimi)
ShISh
Shërbimi Informativ Shtetëror (successor to ShIK)
SIE
Serviciul de Informatii Externe (Romanian post-Communist intelligence service)
Sigint
Signals intelligence (electronic eavesdropping)
SIS
Secret Intelligence Service
SOE
Special Operations Executive
SRI
Serviciul Rôman de Informatii (Romanian post-Communist security service)
SSR
Soviet socialist republic
Stasi
Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (East German Ministry of State Security)
StB
Státní Bezpecnost / Státna Bezpecnost (Czechoslovakian State Security service)
SWT
Sektor für Wissenschaft und Technik (HVA Section for technological espionage)
TVO
Trudovo-Vazpritatelni Obshchezhitiya (Bulgarian gulag)
UB
Urzad Bezpieczenstwa (Polish state security)
UPA
Ukraïnska Povstanska Armiya (Ukrainian underground army)
ZAIG
Zentrale Auswertungs und Informationsgruppe (evaluation department of HVA)
1
T HROUGH A G LASS D ARKLY
Each year, 3 October is a German national holiday known as der Tag der deutschen Einheit – the day of German Unity. It celebrates the reunification of the country in 1989 after forty-four years of being split in two by the front line of the Cold War. The date is not an exact anniversary of any particular event, but was carefully chosen to avoid reminding people of embarrassing events in recent German history.
On 3 October 2008 several thousand people were celebrating the reunification at what had been the border crossing-point between Marienborn in the so-called German Democratic Republic (GDR) and Helmstedt in the Federal Republic when the country was divided roughly north to south by the Iron Curtain after the Second World War. Living conditions to the east of the ‘inner German frontier’ were so grim under the neo-Stalinist government implanted by, and controlled from, Moscow that a total of 3.5 million GDR citizens fled to the West between the end of the war in 1945 and the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961. 1
By 1952 the population haemorrhage threatened the economic survival of Stalin’s German puppet state and the green border was made increasingly escape-proof by barbed wire, watch-towers, minefields, searchlights, trip-wires connected to locked-off machine guns and SM-70 Claymore-type mines with a lethal range of 25m. There were also stretches where attack dogs roamed free and the foot patrols of border guards had orders to shoot to kill – the infamous Schiessbefehl that cost so many lives.
★★★
To the many thousand troops of the Western Allies who drove along the autobahn to Berlin during the Cold War, the Marienborn–Helmstedt crossing was known as Checkpoint Able; Baker was at the other end of the autobahn, where it entered West Berlin; the more famous Checkpoint Charlie was on
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