The GDR reduces the amount of DM that GDR citizens can exchange during trips to the West. Instead of 70 DM, they can now exchange a maximum of 15 DM. West German politicians protest at the move, pointing to the profits from the GDR’s hard-currency receipts.
6-11 July
1987
State visit by West German President Richard von Weizsäcker to the Soviet Union.
10-12 July
1987
First Catholic Congress in the GDR takes place in Dresden with some 100,000 faithful.
14 July
1987
Within just one week, more than 1,400 German migrants from Eastern Europe are registered in the Friedland border transit camp, the highest number in years.
17 July
1987
The GDR government decides to abolish the death penalty.
22 July
1987
The Soviet party and state leader Mikhail Gorbachev appeals for a global "double-zero option".
29 July
1987
Sentences of two to ten years in a labour camp are handed down to six people responsible for the reactor catastrophe in Chernobyl in 1986.
