"Wolfgang Schwanke" wrote in message
news
"Paul Rigg" wrote
in :

I am quite sure that Friedrichstraße was the only East Berlin
S-Bahn
station where one could buy S-Bahn tickets towards West Berlin in
DM. And only in the "non-socialist currency" area, i.e. the area
which acted as an exchange station for intra West Berlin traffic.

I saw them on the machine at Kopenick.

Until 1984 the DR treated the S-Bahn system basically as one, despite
the wall. Tickets from East to West Berlin were just another fare
within the system, "Preisstufe 10" ("fare level 10"). The network
diagrams they published showed the entire city and were the same on
both sides. This is the last one from 1983:

http://www.schmalspurbahn.de/netze/Netz_1983_klein.gif

It's quite an interesting design too. While it pays reference to the
official party nomenclature ("Berlin" for East Berlin, "Westberlin"
without a hyphen - Lüko uses that in his posts -, the wall designated
as "international border", ghost stations not depicted etc.), it goes
against the party line to an extent. Otherwhise East German
publications would carefully avoid any hint of commonalities between
East and West, while this one not only shows both sides as one, but
the design clearly suggests to the viewer which lines were severed by
the wall and ought to be re-joined. Quite remarkable IMHO.

Likewhise the West Berlin BVG used to print U-Bahn maps showing the
entire system:

http://www.schmalspurbahn.de/netze/Netz_1983BVG.jpg

In 1984 BVG took over the operation of the S-Bahn in West Berlin,
since then the diagrams in East and West have integrated U-Bahn and
S-Bahn into one map, but tended to show their halves of the city only:

http://www.schmalspurbahn.de/netze/Netz_1984_klein.gif
http://www.schmalspurbahn.de/netze/N...4BVG_klein.gif

The Western map still pays symbolic tribute to East Berlin, but the
fact that there's a transport network there is merely hinted.

The first diagram of U-Bahn and S-Bahn of the entire city was
published in december 1989:

http://www.wschwanke.de/tmp/berlin_198912_usbahn_B.jpg

Obviously based on the BVG diagram, the lines in the east had been
hastily added, without distinction what line belonged to what system
and with a lot of errors. Still this diagram was iconic, as it was the
first showing the entire city with both systems. We'd never seen that
before. The current diagram is evolved from that one.

I'd like to join the others in thanking you for posting that fascinating
information. I was in Berlin last month, using the U and S-Bahns for the
first time in many years, and really wish I'd read up first on what
happened during the Wall years. Now, it's hard to spot even where the
Wall once stood (apart from obvious preserved remnants), and where the
S-Bahn lines were severed for decades. It's worth following long,
winding threads like this for the occasional, unexpected gems of useful
info.