On 06/01/2012 10:57, Paul Rigg wrote:
I think his point was, and I think he is right, that the DDR authorities
allowed anyone to cross the wall who was either not one of their own
nationals or a national of another country (ie the Eastern Block) with
whom they had an agreement to stop travel.

The West German authorities did not check entries to West Berlin from
East Berlin, presumably because of the four powers agreement which said
that West Berlin was made up of British, American and French Sectors.

So, there was literally no border control on the West Berlin side when
crossing from East Berlin? Nobody even checking passports?

What about at the Inner German Border?

On 06/01/2012 21:55, Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
The Real wrote
in :

What was West German policy towards those who escaped from the East?
Were they allowed to settle in the West as a matter of right?

Yes. East Germans were considered German nationals according to West
German law. They had full citizenship by birth, thus full entitlement
to all social benefits, the right to vote, and the right to settle
down. (Citizenship was another area of disagreement between East and
West Germany. Ask if you're interested, otherwhise I'll leave it at
that.)

Same situation applies for those leaving North Korea for South Korea.

The South Korean government sees itself as the rightful government of
the entire peninsula, so anybody coming in from the north is
automatically a citizen of the Republic of Korea.

wrote in message
...
On 06/01/2012 10:57, Paul Rigg wrote:
I think his point was, and I think he is right, that the DDR authorities
allowed anyone to cross the wall who was either not one of their own
nationals or a national of another country (ie the Eastern Block) with
whom they had an agreement to stop travel.

Did Soviet officers often cross into West Berlin for the day?
Some most certainly did. To keep an eye on the allies, and also to provide a
guard at Spandau Prison. That is why the Russians would not free him.

The West also had military missions into East Berlin.

On 07/01/2012 21:24, wrote:


IIRC, Yugoslav citizens could also easily acquire international
passports and leave the country.

Though communist*, Yugoslavia wasn't part of the Soviet-aligned world.
When Stalin wasn't able to get rid of Tito, Yugoslavia took its own
non-aligned path.


*presumably not-real communism, as with every other implementation ever.

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:55:31 +0100 [UTC], Lüko Willms wrote:
Am 04.01.2012 21:25, schrieb The Real Doctor:
On 04/01/12 12:00, Lüko Willms wrote:
Sure, but not about his religious beliefs, which is something I do
normally not care about, being a private affair.

He funds anti-gay campaigns in Scotland.

Does he fire any gay person from the Scotrail operations he manages?

1) He does not now, nor at any time ever has, personally manage(d) any
ScotRail operations.

2) Assuming he did, and that he was foolish enough to fire any gay
person on the grounds of sexuality, the lawyers would have been onto
him even faster than you insulting someone whose comments you dislike.
--
Ross

Speaking for me, myself and I. Nobody else
- unless I make it clear that I am...

On Thu, 5 Jan 2012 02:21:53 -0800 (PST) [UTC], Neil Williams wrote:
On Jan 4, 11:51*pm, Ross wrote:

In any case, the Germans seem to consider DB AG to be "privatised",
where we would (in layman's terms) say it is a "nationalised company"
or possibly that it has been "vested as a trading company" if we were
trying to be clever (and that's probably the wrong description anyway,
so we wouldn't be being that clever!).

That sounds about right to me - unfortunately Lueko won't seem to
accept the difference, and instead insists that he and only he is
right.

I happened to be browsing uk.r threads from 2009 a couple of nights
back, for no particular reason, and came across threads including Lüko
being equally as overbearing, insulting and frankly idiotic as he is
being in this thread. Leopards don't change their spots.

I've decided that as there is no point attempting any form of
constructive discourse with Lüko, I shall treat him the same way as I
do Tony Polson: I shall ignore him until he posts something which
requires correction in the interests of any future readers who may
think he knows what he's talking about.


So it seems that in the UK what matters is who owns it, whereas in
Germany what matters is what structure is used to define its
ownership. Each to their own, I suppose.

I think that's a good summary, and an equally good explanation of why
there's so much confusion between the two "camps" until someone steps
in and defines terms.
--
Ross

Speaking for me, myself and I. Nobody else
- unless I make it clear that I am...

On Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:41:46 +0100 [UTC], Lüko Willms wrote:

[...]
Life does not stick to your rigid ideas!

Why do you pretend that it sticks to your far more rigid ideas, then?
--
Ross

Speaking for me, myself and I. Nobody else
- unless I make it clear that I am...

On Jan 7, 11:26*pm, Ross wrote:

2) Assuming he did, and that he was foolish enough to fire any gay
person on the grounds of sexuality, the lawyers would have been onto
him even faster

Discrimination on grounds of sexuality was legal up until shamefully
recently.

ian

On Thu, 5 Jan 2012 01:33:49 -0800 (PST) [UTC], ian batten wrote:
On Jan 5, 9:26*am, The Real Doctor wrote:

[1] Previously the DDR government had paid a bonus to Bulgarian border
guards every time they shot and killed and East German trying to
emigrate. I don't know if they made the same kind offer to Hungarians.

Luko, do you have a comment on that? Did the DDR encourage the
shooting of its own citizens for the "crime" of wishing to leave the
workers' paradise? To make it easy for you:

[ ] Yes
[ ] No
[ ] Everyone is a liar, and I have a clever riposte which avoids
saying Yes or No, which will be so impressive that everyone will think
I'm a fantastic intellectual and quite forget my inability to answer
simple "yes" or "no" questions.

You missed box 4, Ian:
[ ] Everyone is a habitual liar and snip four paragraphs of
irrelevant Marxist casuistry and personal attacks. Why am I always
being accused by these Hitler apologists of evading the question when
clearly I *have* answered it?
--
Ross

Speaking for me, myself and I. Nobody else
- unless I make it clear that I am...

On Sat, 07 Jan 2012 21:35:40 +0000 [UTC], wrote:
On 06/01/2012 10:57, Paul Rigg wrote:

I think his point was, and I think he is right, that the DDR authorities
allowed anyone to cross the wall who was either not one of their own
nationals or a national of another country (ie the Eastern Block) with
whom they had an agreement to stop travel.

Did Soviet officers often cross into West Berlin for the day?

According to a website of "memories of US officers in Berlin" I
stumbled over some time back (which was rather interesting reading),
it wasn't that unusual for their plain clothes intelligence patrols
when driving around West Berlin to find themselves following a Soviet
plain clothes intelligence patrol.

I make no claims for the truth or otherwise of that claim, before Lüko
starts ranting.
--
Ross

Speaking for me, myself and I. Nobody else
- unless I make it clear that I am...