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 to display the full-sized image