CINA

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1989, Nov. 11: Since nearly 48 hours the border between East and West Berlin is open (the border checkpoints beween East and West Germany, i.e. GDR and FRG, were opened in the morning of Nov. 10) and millions of Easterners (aka the "Zonies") are swamping the streets of the western cities (incl. West Berlin) and villages...

And especially in West Berlin almost every simple shopkeeper wanted to make a good business - by selling... BANANAS to the "Zonies"(*)!!

Zone Gaby(17) in Luck(FRG):

My first banana 

Titanic("the ultimate satirical magazine") cover headline, Nov. 1989.
A supposedly East German woman with tight-curled perm and cheap clothing from

the GDR (often dubbed the “East Zone” by Westerners), holding a peeled cucumber

in her hands with tears in her eyes... ("explanation" by Goethe Institute)

* Since Nov. 10 the West German gov't offered 100 DM (Deutschmark) "welcoming money" (Begruessungsgeld) for EVERY (incl. babies) East German citizen (**).
Of course it wasn't the money from the gov't, but the West German taxpayers money! And of course the gov't never asked them for permission...

** GDR's population at that time: approx. 17 million. That comes to a total of today's Euro 869,999,482 (S.K. Won: 1,513,686,000,000), spent - by the gov't/"ruling" class - in only few weeks...