'THE BORDER OF PEACE'. PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF POLAND - GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC IN THE YEARS 1949-1971

The issue of the border and cooperation within the borderland was an important element of relations between Poland and the GDR from 1949 to 1971. The Oder and the Lusatian Neisse were the cause of unofficial controversies on the Warsaw - East Berlin line, camouflaged by an officially declared friendship and common ideology. The character of the Western border was determined by the Polish-East German relations in the borderland, which were mostly based on ideological-political grounds. Cooperation in the borderland consisted mainly in formal propaganda contacts between parties and state institutions. In consequence in the period under discussion it was impossible to develop processes integrating the societies on both banks of the Oder and Lusatian Neisse, whereas economic relations could only be maintained on a limited scale.