---
title: '"Grenzgänger zu bedienen ist unter unserer Würde": shop poster, Königs Wusterhausen district'
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-grenzgaenger-shop-poster-1961/
description: 'A plain typeset notice: ''To serve border-crossers is beneath our dignity.'
section: Collection
---

[Collection](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/)

[!["Grenzgänger zu bedienen ist unter unserer Würde": shop poster, Königs Wusterhausen district](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-grenzgaenger-shop-poster-1961.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/gdr-grenzgaenger-shop-poster-1961.jpg)

# "Grenzgänger zu bedienen ist unter unserer Würde": shop poster, Königs Wusterhausen district

A plain typeset notice: 'To serve border-crossers is beneath our dignity. They will only be served courteously again once they have taken up work in our republic.' It speaks in the first-person plural of the shop staff and names one bounded group, East Germans who worked in West Berlin, as the cause; the identical printed format is the tell.

- **Date:** August 4, 1961
- **Period:** [Cold War](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#era=cold-war)
- **Made by:** Sponsor not named on the poster; photographed and captioned by ADN-Zentralbild (GDR state news agency); posted in shops of Kreis Königs Wusterhausen
- **Region:** [Western and Central Europe](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#region=western-central-europe)
- **Country:** [East Germany](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#country=east-germany)
- **Medium:** [Poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#medium=poster)
- **Issuer type:** [Mixed](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#actor=mixed)
- **Regime:** [German Democratic Republic](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#regime=german-democratic-republic)
- **Leader:** [Walter Ulbricht](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#leader=walter-ulbricht)
- **Audience:** [Domestic public](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#audience=domestic-public)
- **Purpose:** [Mobilize or secure compliance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#purpose=mobilize-comply)
- **Themes:** [Labor](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=labor), [Economy and finance](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=economy-finance), [Migration](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#theme=migration)
- **Event:** [Berlin Crisis 1961](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/#event=berlin-crisis-1961)
- **Techniques:** [Scapegoating](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/scapegoating/) [Manufactured consensus](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/manufactured-consensus/)
- **Source:** Unidentified Source blurred: contractors, cutouts, buried disclosure
- **Source:** [Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive), Bild 183-65208-0001, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-65208-0001,_Plakat_gegen_Grenzg%C3%A4nger.jpg), retrieved September 29, 2026
- **Rights:** CC BY-SA 3.0 DE (Bundesarchiv release on Wikimedia Commons; file page states the licence) Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-65208-0001 / CC-BY-SA 3.0 DE

## Text on the object

Original (German) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
Grenzgänger zu bedienen
ist unter unserer Würde

Sie werden erst dann wieder zuvorkommend
bedient, wenn sie eine Arbeit in unserer Republik
aufgenommen haben

[illegible printer's imprint line at bottom edge]
```

English translation (machine translation by Claude, not verified by a fluent reader)

```
To serve border-crossers
is beneath our dignity

They will only be served courteously again once
they have taken up work in our republic

[illegible printer's imprint line at bottom edge]
```

Read from the committed 784 px image and matched against the German text quoted on the Commons file page.

[← FRIEDENSVERTRAG: East Berlin street board on a German peace treaty](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gdr-friedensvertrag-board-1961/) ["Am 13. August gab's roten Pfeffer": house-community banner, Bitterfeld →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/bitterfeld-red-pepper-banner-1961/)

## Using the same techniques

- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Ondersoeckt de Geesten, ofse van den Duyvel syn, of niet (the De Witt brothers as devils)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/ondersoeckt-de-geesten-de-witt-devils-1672/) (1672 · Scapegoating, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation by the Queen in Council, to the Princes, Chiefs, and People of India (printed sheet, Allahabad, 1 November 1858)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/queens-proclamation-to-the-people-of-india-1858/) (Nov 1, 1858 · Glittering generalities, Scapegoating)
- [De Vlamingen aan de Negers van den Congo (The Flemings to the Negroes of the Congo)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/de-vlamingen-aan-de-negers-van-den-congo-1885/) (1885 · Scapegoating)
- [The Radical Programme, No. 4: Dismemberment of the Empire (Gladstone & Co. auction India), St Stephen's Review Presentation Cartoon](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/radical-programme-selling-india-st-stephens-review-1891/) (Oct 31, 1891 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating)
- ["England and the War in South Africa" (Der wahre Jacob, 1899)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/war-and-capitalism-der-wahre-jacob-1899/) (Dec 5, 1899 · Card stacking, Scapegoating)
- ["Negro Rule" vampire cartoon with sworn affidavit](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/negro-rule-vampire-1900/) (Jul 4, 1900 · Accusation in a mirror, Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Racist "Negro Rule" caricature.
- [Японский Император и его лукавые доброжелатели (The Japanese Emperor and His Cunning Well-Wishers): Russian Russo-Japanese War print](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/japanese-mikado-cunning-well-wishers-1904/) (1904 · Name-calling, Scapegoating)