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Picture 16:
The same street corner as in picture 15 (Elsenstraße). The picture shows members
of the East German worker’s militia erecting a fence in preparation for the
wall-building. These paramilitary troops had been founded in 1953 and were organized
at the work-place. Their existence was justified in East German ideology as a
continuation of working-class traditions from the 1920s. Thus, they had the symbol
of the worker’s militia of the Weimar Republic on their uniforms. Officially,
membership was optional. In fact, people were put under pressure by the threat of
disadvantages in their career if they didn’t join and by incentives, such as pension
bonuses, for those who did.
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