Controlling 'Socialist Integration': Transnational Cooperation between East German and Polish Customs Agents

• In Event: Revisiting "Socialist Integration": Transnational Cooperation and Its Challenges under State Socialism

Abstract

In 1972, Poland and East Germany opened their shared border to passport- and visa-free travel for (most) citizens, in line with Comecon’s ongoing plans to deepen “socialist economic integration.” In everyday life, no profession was more central to the success or failure of such integration than customs agents, who were entrusted with controlling the flow of goods (and therefore also of people carrying them) across socialist borders. While customs documentation has been central to many studies of “trader tourism” between Poland and East Germany, customs agents themselves have not yet been the focus of sustained attention. This paper will examine efforts at cross-border cooperation between customs agents in East Germany and Poland in the 1970s and 1980s, reflecting on the ways in which they facilitated, inhibited, and shaped the meanings of “integration” in the context of state socialism.

Author

• Andrew S. Tompkins, German Historical Institute Warsaw (Poland)