Originally Posted by
MSPeconomist
In fact, the worst paperwork I can recall was when I walked into East Berlin for the day through Checkpoint Charlie and had to itemize the exact amounts of every currency I had with me. As I had been traveling throughout Europe, I had coins from about ten different countries to sort and count before crossing the border. Upon the return, I was required to itemize every pfenning of the mandatory East German Marks I exchanged, including tips for restroom attendants.
I'll have to ask my husband when he gets home, but we have a German friend who is a professor. He went to a conference in East Berlin, back in the day, and on his way in (I think), at the East Berlin checkpoint, he had to account for every penny he had. Well, sometime before going to the conference, he had picked up some food, eaten it in his car, and dropped the change (and the sandwich wrapper) either on the seat or on the floor (my German is pretty shaky). He had forgotten about it. So he is entering East Berlin, and the checkpoint guards search his car for . . . I don't know, contraband? And they find the sandwich wrapper and "foreign" (West German) currency. They went a little nuts/paranoid, thinking he was a smuggler, told him to get out of the car, and had him wait while they did a very thorough search. He thought, "This is it! I'm going to end up in a DDR (East German) prison for the rest of my life over a sandwich wrapper and some loose change." Different era . . .