While deciding on the installation of anti-personnel mines on the inner German border (SM-70), there are some qualms in the executive committee of the GDR Ministry of Defence as to whether the likely triggering of the mines might not provoke a politically unfavourable reaction from the West and whether it might not therefore be better to develop and use less effective mines. Defence Minister Hoffmann proposes allowing Erich Honecker to decide this question as general secretary. – On 10 January 1972, Hoffmann announces to top staff that the mine will be introduced.
20 December
1971
In East Berlin, the "agreement between the Senate and the GDR government on the facilitation and improvement of travel and visitor traffic" and the "agreement between the Senate and the GDR government on the regulation of the question of enclaves created by territorial exchange" are signed.
In future, West Berliners are allowed to visit the GDR once or several times for up to thirty days a year "for humanitarian, family, religious, cultural and tourist reasons." To do so, they have to apply for permits at "offices for visiting and travel affairs".
As part of the territorial exchange, it is agreed to build a kilometre-long connecting road for the West Berlin exclave Steinstücken.
RIAS report on the West Berlin exclave Steinstücken before the "little reunification", 29 December 1971 (in German) (Source: Archiv Deutschlandradio, Broadcast: Rundschau am Morgen, Reporter: Rainer Wagner, Sigrid Langemann, Hans Kwiet)
