Editing Inner German border (section)

===Cross-border contacts===
{{multiple image
| align    = left
| image1   = East german propaganda mortar.jpg
| width1   = 240
| alt1     = Two metal canisters resting on a glass shelf with a roll of papers, on which a question mark is visible, in between them. A two-euro coin is positioned to the left to provide a scale.
| caption1 = Roll of East German propaganda leaflets in a canister which was fired across the border during the "leaflet war" between East and West Germany
| image2   = Mackenrode border.jpg
| alt2     = Two armed East German soldiers, seen through a barbed-wire fence, walking from right to left through a grassy hilly landscape towards a clump of young trees. Behind them is a very large propaganda sign showing a caricature of West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer clutching a missile while standing on a ladder being propped up by a military officer. The rungs of the ladder are made from the acronym "NATO". The sign is captioned: "Wer hoch hinaus will, fällt tief!"
| width2   = 167
| caption2 = East German border guards near Mackenrode, Thuringia, walking past a propaganda caricature of West German Chancellor [[Konrad Adenauer]]
}}
There was little informal contact between the two sides; East German guards were under orders not to speak to Westerners.<ref>[[#Bailey|Bailey (1983)]], p. 61.</ref> After the initiation of ''détente'' between East and West Germany in the 1970s, the two sides established procedures for maintaining formal contacts through fourteen direct telephone connections or ''Grenzinformationspunkte'' (GIP, "border information points"). They were used to resolve local problems affecting the border, such as floods, forest fires or stray animals.<ref>[[#Bailey|Bailey (1983)]], p. 48.</ref>

For many years, the two sides waged a propaganda battle across the border using propaganda signs and canisters of leaflets fired or dropped into each other's territory.<ref name="Gordon">[[#Gordon|Gordon (1988)]], p. ''passim''.</ref>  West German leaflets sought to undermine the willingness of East German guards to shoot at refugees attempting to cross the border, while East German leaflets promoted the GDR's view of West Germany as a militaristic regime intent on restoring Germany's 1937 borders.<ref name="Shears-propaganda">[[#Shears|Shears (1970)]], pp. 164–65.</ref><ref name="Gordon" />

During the 1950s, West Germany sent millions of propaganda leaflets into East Germany each year. In 1968 alone, over 4,000&nbsp;projectiles containing some 450,000&nbsp;leaflets were fired from East Germany into the West. Another 600&nbsp;waterproof East German leaflet containers were recovered from cross-border rivers.<ref name="Shears-propaganda" /> The "leaflet war" was eventually ended by mutual agreement in the early 1970s as part of the normalisation of relations between the two German states.<ref name="Gordon" />