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People living in the restricted area were no longer issued with passes to travel between zones, and people from West Germany were also no longer allowed to travel over the five-kilometre-long strip. To put an end to cries of outrage from the people, a special scheme was put into place which saw the forced resettlement of so-called enemies, criminals and “suspicious” people from the protection strip.
“Operation Vermin” was the name given to the actions that saw 11,000 residents forcibly moved out of the border area in a matter of days. Violence was used in part to move these people from their homes.7
Not only did these people lose their communities, but also a great deal of their personal possessions. Around 3,000 people avoided forced resettlement by fleeing to the West.
Closing the border also meant closing many transport links. 32 railroad lines, three freeways, 31 trunk and federal roads, 80 first-order country roads, 60 second-order country roads and thousands of local roads were closed.8 In the west, a “zone border area” was thus created, which had a negative impact on the economic situation in the areas near the border and on the reality of life for the inhabitants. The West German government created incentive programmes which aimed to help minimise the effect the precarious situation having on the people. People on the GDR side of the border were kept quiet with special discounts and benefits. They were treated to pay rises, tax deductions and improved pensions. They were also supplied with better consumer goods.