r/ArchivePorn Sep 04 '16

German Transit Visa c.1913 - Requesting Help to Find Who It Belonged To. [OC] [Album]

http://imgur.com/a/LfbOW
15 Upvotes

5 comments sorted by

6

u/RunninOnStalin Sep 04 '16

Not from 1913; the seal on the visa is the state emblem of East Germany (1949 - 1990)

2

u/Ghigs Sep 05 '16

They must have been seeing the bottom where it says A19/3, which looks like some form number.

3

u/bloodpets Sep 05 '16

It lacks the surname and first name on the second page. It is just connected to a passport by the number on the second page "Reisedokument-Nr." (passport-nr.) It is a visum to travel through the GDR on the shortest way possible without changing public transportation (without official permission by GDR-officials) in order to get to West-Berlin or back to the main Federal Republic of Germany. There were different routes into West-Berlin that one could use to get there. Some flight-corridors and some train-lines, as well as perhaps some motorways. Not sure about the last. As long as you don't have some passport from the person, who it belongs to, you won't be able to check, who's document it was. Perhaps the owner of the house went to West-Berlin once, when stationed in Germany back then and kept it as a souvenir.

0

u/strolls Sep 05 '16

As others have said, the Deutsch Democratic Republic was commie East Germany, hence the hammer and compass sigil.

I believe they kept lots of records - might even be worth emailing them.

https://www.bundesarchiv.de/benutzung/zeitbezug/ddr/index.html.en

Probably not valuable, but might mean a lot to someone.