Seems like there were a few ways out, and they all had systems of monitoring in place. Westerners on the highways could interact with Easterners, but their trip was monitored at check points, down to how much time they took for the journey, to make sure they weren't fraternizing too much.
Apparently the GDR, who was bearing the cost of the transit roads and was facing economic difficulties, began levying fees on travel from West Berlin and West Germany. They tried to increase these fees, but eventually the FRG, probably realizing it was over a barrel on the issue, just started paying the GDR a yearly fee to keep the roads toll free.
The flight travel bit is interesting. If you had fled into West Berlin, you can't exactly drive through East Germany like everyone else. The Western government subsidized a flight service between West Berlin and West Germany primarily for such travelers.
The 1948-49 blockade was also fascinating moment. The Western parts of Berlin (at the time split between France, UK and USA) had their roads blocked off; rather than start getting supplies from the Soviet side and thus lose control over West Berlin, an airlift was instituted which did an amazing 200,000 flights to Tempelhof over 11 months. In comparison, Chicago ORD had 580,000 combined landings and takeoffs in the whole of 2014.
Conflict-wise it's interesting to contrast the general Cold War with the non-wars if Afghanistan, Iraq.
Wikipedia has a good overview under the Travel section of the article on West Berlin though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Berlin#Transport_and_trans...
Seems like there were a few ways out, and they all had systems of monitoring in place. Westerners on the highways could interact with Easterners, but their trip was monitored at check points, down to how much time they took for the journey, to make sure they weren't fraternizing too much.
Apparently the GDR, who was bearing the cost of the transit roads and was facing economic difficulties, began levying fees on travel from West Berlin and West Germany. They tried to increase these fees, but eventually the FRG, probably realizing it was over a barrel on the issue, just started paying the GDR a yearly fee to keep the roads toll free.
The flight travel bit is interesting. If you had fled into West Berlin, you can't exactly drive through East Germany like everyone else. The Western government subsidized a flight service between West Berlin and West Germany primarily for such travelers.
Fascinating period.