1952 Border
Guard Photo Album
Here is a
selection of page scans from an album assembled by an un
named East German border guard in 1952. He was stationed at
the town of Gompertshausen - cavalry troopers may recall
this town in the southern section of the usual patrol trace,
we observed it from PVPs in the vicinity of Trappstadt and
Alsleben. The countryside was generally open and rolling
farmland - some forested hills rose in the distant east.
The
collection contains a lot of “ buddy shots “ the guys just
goofing around; pictures any 18 year old would take. There
are a few images of towers, bunkers and the usual rough and
ready wooden gates pulled across roads that once joined the
Bavaria and Thuringia. There is very little barbed wire at
this point - the border was pretty much open except in those
points where the East Germans had set up guard posts.
Today -
everything is about the same except the barriers are gone
and Gompertshausen, just like most of those small farming
towns along the border, has grown remarkably. Also - this
area has retained a few of the third generation East German
towers - the distant fringe of the memorial sites near the
former legal crossing point at Eussenhausen.
The town web
site is here:
http://www.gompertshausen.de/index.php?id=1
And another
municipal site is here:
http://home.meinestadt.de/gompertshausen
Click on the thumbnail
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