VOLKSMARINE T-Shirt

Following the building of the Berlin Wall on 13 August 1961 the Grenzbrigade Küste der Grenzpolizei (GBK) (Coastal Border Brigade of the Border Police) was incorporated into the People's Navy. With the reorganization of 1965 all attack forces, i.e., the fast torpedo boats, were combined into a single flotilla (the 6th Flotilla) and stationed on the Bug peninsula of the island of Rügen. In the 1970s the People's Navy had grown to about 18,000 men. In the 1980s some of the ships were replaced and the People's Navy acquired Soviet-built fighter-bombers. In 1988, the People's Navy had brief hostile confrontations with Polish naval forces over a maritime border dispute; in subsequent negotiations about two thirds of the disputed maritime area were allocated to the GDR. The People's Navy was dissolved, like all other branches of the former National People's Army, on 2 October 1990 – the day before the official reunification of Germany. Some of its staff was assumed into the Bundesmarine (which was henceforth called Deutsche Marine), some by the German Border Police. Most of the ships and other equipment were scrapped or sold.