Road and railway bordercrossings in the communist regimes were guarded especially good, but by far not as tightly as the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Union and Albania had borderguarding that perhaps resembled the Iron Curtain most.
As I wrote before, every communist country had their own system og guarding the borders. Every one of them had their special features. F. ex. the communist Albania had one of the tightest control systems with virtually no bordercrossings for international traffic. They had dirt strip, signaling fence, bunkers for borderguards etc. On the other side, border between Czechoslovakia and Hungary did not have any signaling fence or minefields, as for example the border between Hungary and Austria had been devised.
Also with increasing tourist traffic to border regions, communist countries made bilateral agreements that citizens of both countries in question (say Poland and Czechoslovakia) could freely cross the border when on the marked tourist path. It of course did not mean that they could stay as tourists, because for that purpose one would have to go to the usual controlled bordercrossing. So yes, you could in fact take a stroll from Czechoslovakia to Poland and vice versa. But for other countries, where these bilateral agreements were not signed, you could not.
Today, Poland and Czech republic have an agreement that you cannot cross the border other places than official controlposts. Germany and Czech republic have an agreement that allows citizens (with ID) of FRG and CZ and third countries wthat do not need visa neither to FRG or to CZ, to cross borders at any place, up to 20/25 km inside the other country. Austria and Czech republic have an agreement that one cannot cross border other places than official controlposts. Think of it, today every country mentioned in the above border agreements are EU members!
And yes, after coming over the signaling fence, the field or area between that and the border have been usually turned to a minefield, but not everywhere. Since sometimes it could have been 10 km from the actual border, the "no man's land" have been used by local forestry and agricultural units as fields and woods. Then, of course such a work would mean a constant surveillance of two borderguards with dogs and loaded guns prepared to use them in case some of the workers would want to flee. Otherwise, virtually for everyone else, the "no man's land" have been a restricted zone.
Petter
"John J. Kelly" <johnkelly@...> wrote:
I know, from the old days, that all the borders in the Eastern Bloc were
closed off. In fact, I remember crossing from Poland - DDR at night and
the border was floodlight, just like the Iron Curtain. You simply could
not take a stroll from the GDR to Poland or Romania to Hungary or
whatever. You could only cross the borders with the relevant permission
at a checkpoint. They were not as tightly guarded as the border to the
West but they were guarded nonetheless. Also, for about 20 miles to each
side of the border you could be pulled over and have your ID checked.
Even if you did get over the fence, the immediate vicinity was
"Sperrgebiet" or security zone.
JK
>
> It might have been the other way. In the old days, the GDR regime had
much stricter policy on traveling abroad. The citizens of GDR could
travel freely, without a visa to one country only, and that was
Czechoslovakia. Although there has not been any minefields, strips or
signaling fence between Poland and the GDR, the border guards had still
a job to monitor illegal bordercrossings. So the watchtowers were always
in existence. But it was generally a very quiet time. The actual lively
period on this border came though mostly after the 1989 and the
communist fall. This is when GDR became a regular EU country over night.
The photos you taken show a quite fresh activity on the strip. This
means a ongoing activity on the part of the Polish borderguards. The
illegal bordercrossings then concerned subjects from the former
republics of the Soviet Union and the third world countries.
> This should give you an idea. Every communist country had their own
borderguard system, eventhough some of them had no Western country as a
neighbor.
>
> Jesper Nielsen <jesniel@...> wrote:
> Attached two photos taken few days before PL joined EU.
>
> They show a border strip on PL land, so PL wanted to keep people
leaving PL.
>
> But why?
>
> In cold war time the iron curtain was at DDDE.
>
> Did PL make a border strip during cold war to make sure people didn't
escape to another communist country, or is the strip post cold war?
>
> Jesper
>
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