I am still wondering about the Steinstücken possible counter-enclave
question. A couple of days ago, I was in Berlin, and I visited
Steinstücken. I have strong suspicions that, when the
Bernhard-Beyer-Straße between Steinstücken and West Berlin was handed
over to West Berlin, a small piece of the Stahnsdorfer Straße was
handed over as well, in order to give access to the western part of the
exclave. Catudal writes that prior to the building of a footbridge
across the railway, people could only access the western part via the
so-called Rote Brücke (in actual fact called Stahnsdorfer Brücke). I
understand from this that the western part couldnt be reached by cars
but through GDR territory.
At the actual spot, I noticed a change in road surface in the
Stahnsdorfer Straße just west of the point where the Teltower Straße
joins it. The GDR side is cobblestones, the West Berlin side is tarmac.
It is there that the sign Berlin is placed (on the Stahnsdorfer
Straße).
This is why I thought that the territory in between red lines on the
attached scan (the map from Catudal edited by me) was handed over to
West Berlin (it accounts for the jig just north of the Teltower
Straße). But then I saw a regular Berlin transport map at the
Bernhard-Beyer-Straße bus stop, which was a little bit different: the
part of the railway in between green lines is, according to that map,
part of Brandenburg.
So the counter-enclave option is not a strange one! But the Rote Brücke
was also included in Brandenburg. So people going to the western part
of Steinstücken by car still had to pass through GDR territory! Which
was no problem, since it was a bridge and no doubt securely fenced off
at the sides. There were some other examples in Berlin of this (S-Bahn
access to the Friedrichstraße station and a couple of stretches of S-
and U-Bahn going from West Berlin to West Berlin but passing underneath
East-Berlin, and maybe more).
Since the inclusion of the Rote Brücke in the GDR would look a bit
confusing on a city map (crossing the border twice, but without border
control), I think the Falk map depicted it the way it did, making it a
lot clearer for an average map user, but much more confusing for us.
So this is my theory: West Berlin was given the Bernhard-Beyer-Straße
and the part of the Stahnsdorfer Straße between the former and the Rote
Brücke, but not the bridge itself. The bridge was exclusively used by
the West, though.
By the way: I was unable to find the footbridge; I think it has been
torn down, since it was of little use since the Rote Brücke could be
used.
Peter S.
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