GDR Passport to Cuba – Youth Festival 1978, Havana
GDR Passport Cuba Havana
This East German (GDR) passport was used for travel to Havana, Cuba, in 1978. Not many East German citizens had the chance to travel that far. In October 1962, the ship “Völkerfreundschaft” set course for Cuba for the first time. But the expectations of the vacationers were not to be fulfilled. The Cuban Missile Crisis was to blame. A few GDR citizens had the opportunity to travel to Cuba on the “MS Arkona” and later also by airplane. Enjoy the video. GDR Passport Cuba Havana
The “Völkerfreundschaft” – vacation ship of the GDR
On February 24, 1960, the “Völkerfreundschaft” sets sail from Rostock on its maiden voyage. The GDR’s first vacation ship offered luxurious cruises not only to “deserving workers”.
Rostock has been home to cruise ships not just since the AIDA shipping company. Even in GDR times, vacation ships set sail from the Hanseatic city, on which the “working population” and “deserving activists” traveled to the Baltic region or the Black Sea. Athletes from the GDR Olympic team are also on board. The “MS Völkerfreundschaft” is the first of these socialist dream ships.
Together with the “Fritz Heckert”, named after the Spartacus co-founder and Comintern functionary, the only new cruise ship built for the GDR, the “Völkerfreundschaft” is used from 1960. Later, the “MS Arkona” was added, which was also the ZDF (German) TV dream ship as the “MS Astor”.
The “ship of misfortune” becomes a vacation ship
The ship had already become sadly famous before its first voyage under the GDR flag in February. On July 25, 1956, still flying the Swedish flag as the “Stockholm”, it collided with the liner “Andrea Doria”, which was twice its size, in a fog bank off the US East Coast. While the Italian ship sank – 51 people lost their lives in the accident (five of them on the “Stockholm”) – the damaged ship reached New York and was repaired. In 1960, the GDR bought the ship for 20 million crowns.
Tom Topol | Passport Historian & Author
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