ABSTRACT
Given the harsh economic and supply situation at the end of the 1940s, the battle for Berliners’ stomachs was just as important as that waged for their hearts and minds. Both sides encouraged continued smuggling as a way of undermining the economy of the other side. At first, the GDR seemed to be winning the ‘economic war’. Controls on the carrying of goods over sector boundaries particularly affected passengers from the French Sector, who had been shopping in Neukölln and Kreuzberg, but who had to pass through the Soviet Sector in order to get home. Sewer rats like the fictional Harry Lime completely lacked moral or ideological constraints. If even steel could be smuggled across borders without the correct authorization and/or payments of duty, the chances of controlling smaller items were slim. Young East Berliners sold potatoes as peddlers door to door in West Berlin.
