Border Troops of The German Democratic Republic - Pass and Control Units

Pass and Control Units

For most visitors to East Berlin and the GDR, including persons who utilized the land transit routes (road and rail) between West Germany and West Berlin, their exposure to the Grenztruppen der DDR consisted of dealing with the members of the "Pass and Control Units" (Paß- und Kontrolleinheiten - PKE) who processed travellers passing through the GDR's Grenzübergangsstellen (border crossing points). Although they wore Grenztruppen uniforms, the members of the PKE were in fact members of the 6th Main Department (Hauptabteilung VI) of the GDR Ministry of State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit der DDR - "Stasi").

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