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Mercedes-Benz O 303 
Class: Bus, Single-deck — Model origin: 
![[*]](/res/star.png){kind=small}
Vehicle used by a character or in a car chase
Comments about this vehicle| Author | Message |
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◊ 2007-09-29 18:14 |
![[Image: charlie22bfp7.2999.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/0is204/charlie22bfp7.2999.jpg)  |
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◊ 2007-09-29 18:19 |
Is that an East German transit plate? |
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◊ 2007-09-29 18:52 |
It's a GDR-phantasy-plate. This combination was never issued. Also the West German plate, the GDR-border-officer hold in his hand, doesn't belong to the bus. GI is for Giessen, but Strassberg and Mickhausen are tiny villages close to Augsburg, so originally the bus should have a plate with "A". An older bus from there had to have "SMÜ" Anyways, the main point of this scene was real! In the 70ies there was a bus existing, a Magirus Deutz from a bus-company around Fulda, which had two license plates, a West German and a East German, to change with a mechanic system like the Aston Martin from James Bond! It's the truth. This Magirus-bus had no company-logos on it's body. This plate-changing-system was constructed to hold a secret in the GDR down. As I wrote sometimes, the GDR has sold it's political prisoners to Western Germany. Yes, like on a slave-market. With the selling of political prisoners the GDR as earned a lot of "real" (Western) money. When everything was arranged (paid) to bring the prisoners in freedom (resp.to Western Germany) a bus was send into the GDR, usually across the border-point Herleshausen-Wartha. For safety (and secret-) reasons the bus picked the prisoners directly up in the GDR-jail. During the trip the bus-driver switched the Western plate to a GDR-plate. It would have been a very hot and dramatical point, if the East German citizens would have seen a West German bus going into the prison. Prisons, especially for politcal prisoners have been one of the biggest secrets in the GDR. Unfortunately this bus, also it's plate-changing-system doesn't exist any more. Some pictures and Video-scenes are left. -- Last edit: 2007-09-29 18:54:11 |
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◊ 2007-09-29 19:05 |
Very interesting. You'd think it would be easier just to transfer the prisoners from an East German bus to a West German one at some quiet place near the border. You'd also think that it would occur to the film producers to use a bus without any company name for this scene. .gif ":)") |
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◊ 2007-09-29 19:16 |
Yes, this would have been a bit more incognito. The people in the GDR have always stared to all Western cars, they've seen, especially with big company-logos. Also while travelling with a normal private car, everyone was looking at you. Even without a car, you was always been recognized as a Western tourist. Clothing, perfume- and deodorant-smell, also the way of talking and behaviour, all of this has seperated a West German from an East German. |
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◊ 2007-09-29 23:17 |
![[Image: charlie35on0.5497.jpg]](http://pics.imcdb.org/0is239/charlie35on0.5497.jpg) |
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◊ 2007-09-30 01:12 |
In these TV-reportage about the Autobahn in the GDR, I just wrote about, was also a sentence of a Stasi-film (GDR-secret-service) about people, who had smuggled GDR-citizens out of the country. These ones took a Fiat 124 -nearly identical with the Lada 1200- and they had also mounted such a kind of a licence-plate-changer, like that bus. Basicially a good idea to chance a Western Fiat just by replacing the license-plate into a Lada from the GDR. |
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◊ 2011-02-21 18:54 |
Here some pics of the legendary original bus, which was used to transport the political prisoners out of the DDR. http://www.flucht-und-ausreise.de/extern/bus1.jpg http://www.flucht-und-ausreise.de/extern/bus2.jpg Maybe I can find the scene, when the plates were changed automaticially (similar to the construction of James Bond's car in "Goldfinger"). It was domumented on film for sure. -- Last edit: 2011-02-21 18:54:46 |
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