Overview 1964
2 January: In the GDR, new ID cards are issued with the words "Citizen of the German Democratic Republic" printed on them.
15 January: A group of refugees again manages to escape to West Berlin through a laboriously dug tunnel.
12/13 March: Robert Havemann is removed from his position as professor in the mathematics/science department of the Berlin Humboldt University and excluded from the Party. In his series of lectures on scientific aspects of philosophy in the winter semester of 1963/64, he voiced criticism regarding issues of Stalinism in the GDR. In an interview with the "Hamburger Echo" on 11 March, he says he is interested in "overcoming all the degenerate phenomena of the Stalinist era by criticising them openly and calling them bluntly by name." He says no social order can afford "to allow the continued existence of abuses that have been recognised as such."
22 March: In a speech to the "Kongress Ostdeutscher Landesvertretungen", West German Chancellor says that there can be no relinquishing of the territories beyond the Oder-Neisse Line, but that the West German government was trying “to find a way to reach an understanding with our eastern neighbours based on law, peaceful negotiation and mutual respect."
23 April: The official GDR gazette publishes a regulation on the "Protection of the State Border of the GDR". It states that special permission is required to enter the buffer zone of 500 metres and the prohibited zone of five kilometres to the German-German border. Residents in both these zones are banned from leaving their apartments between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.. Residents in both zones are required to report to the GDR security authorities all people who enter the two zones without permission, or face prison sentences or fines.
12 June: In Moscow, Nikita Khrushchev and Walter Ulbricht sign a "Treaty of Friendship, Mutual Assistance and Cooperation" between the Soviet Union and the GDR. The treaty has a time limit of twenty years, but would be extended automatically after that time.
13 August: On the 3rd anniversary of the construction of the Wall, an hour of silence is held in West Berlin between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. in commemoration of victims of the Wall.
9 September: Pensioners in the GDR are allowed by a resolution of the GDR Council of Ministers to travel to visit relatives in West Germany or West Berlin once a year for up to four weeks.
10 September: The Portuguese Armando Rodrigues de Sá arrives in Cologne. He is celebrated there as the millionth "foreign worker" and is given a moped as a welcoming present.
13 September: In the early morning, the 21-year-old Michael Meyer tries to cross the Wall towards West Berlin on Stallschreiberstrasse in the Mitte district of Berlin. After some warning shots, GDR border guards fire directly at him. Michael Meyer is hit by several shots and is left lying right next to the Wall. American soldiers and West Berlin police officers give covering fire and pull him into West Berlin using ropes and a ladder leant against the Wall.
21 September: GDR prime minister Otto Grotewohl, who was partly responsible for the forced merger of the SPD and Communist Party in 1946, dies in East Berlin after a stroke. On 24 September, the GDR Volkskammer confirms Willi Stoph, who has already been representing Grotewohl for two years, as his successor.
24 September: In East Berlin, the 2nd Border Pass Agreement is signed. It allows West Berliners to visit their East Berlin relatives from 30.10. - 12.11.1964, over Christmas/New Year 1964/65 and at Easter and Pentecost 1965. In the first of these visiting periods in October/November, around 600,000 passes are issued, and in the second at Christmas/New Year, 821,000.
5 October: In the biggest tunnelling operation since the Wall went up, 57 people succeed in fleeing to West Berlin. Shortly before the escape is finished, GDR border guards discover the tunnel entrance. There is a firefight in which the border soldier Egon Schultz is killed.
6 October: In East Berlin, there are ceremonies marking the 15th anniversary of the founding of the GDR. Walter Ulbricht announces an amnesty for some 10,000 prisoners, including political prisoners. - The GDR denies a report by the newspaper “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” that the GDR has for a long time been allowing political prisoners to leave for West Germany in return for economic assistance.
14 October: The Soviet party and state leader Nikita S. Khrushchev is toppled in the CPSU Central Committee. The main criticisms levelled at him are regarding his failed economic policies and the troubled relations with the People's Republic of China. His successor is Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev.
1 December: From now on, all visitors to the GDR and East Berlin coming from West German and other Western countries, with the exception of pensioners and children, have to exchange five West German marks for East German marks at a 1:1 exchange rate. West Berliners have to exchange three DM for every day they stay. - In response, the West German government breaks off talks about East German loan requests.
