Vehicle registration plates were issued in the former German Democratic Republic between 1953 and 1990. Vehicles whose cylinder capacity was less than 50 cm3 were exempt from registration. The plates remained legal until the end of 1993, when all vehicles had to be re-registered to the West German system.

Design

The plates' appearance remained largely constant during the 37 years in which they were issued. Black alphanumerics rendered in a condensed version of DIN 1451 were used (although other fonts have also been observed), with the first letter indicating the bezirk (the German word for 'district') where the vehicle was registered. Between 1953 and 1974, the format of these plates was XX ##-##, where X is any letter in the range A-Z, and # is a digit between 0 and 9 – although a numerical prefix and/or suffix of '00' was disallowed.

In response to the dramatic increase in the number of vehicles on East German roads, the design was revised in October 1974 to include an additional serial letter, albeit at the cost of the initial digit. The new format became: XXX #-##. Under this system, '0' was a permitted prefix digit, but the combination '0-00' was disallowed.

List of district identifiers The prefixes were allocated alphabetically to each region, from North to South. The letters G, J, Q, and W were not used.

Prefix Bezirk A Rostock B Schwerin C Neubrandenburg D, P Potsdam E Frankfurt F, L Erfurt H, M Magdeburg I East Berlin K, V Halle N Gera O Suhl R, Y Dresden S, U Leipzig T, X Karl-Marx-Stadt Z Cottbus

The prefixes HJ, KZ, SA, and SS were not issued, due to their Nazi connotations.

Special Plates

GST

Vehicles belonging to the Gesellschaft für Sport und Technik (en: Sport and Technology Association), or GST for short, were allocated plates with only a single prefix letter denoting the district of registration.

Military Vehicles belonging to the Nationale Volksarmee (en: National People's Army) were issued plates bearing the VA (Volksarmee) prefix, whilst those of the Grenztruppen (en: Border Troops), and Grenzschutz (as of 1990) received the GT and GS prefixes, respectively.

Volkspolizei

Vehicles of the Volkspolizei were furnished with plates bearing the VP prefix. Although they were identical in appearance and format to other East German plates, Volkspolizei plates followed a different system.

The first two digits after the VP prefix identified the district (or bezirk) where the vehicle was stationed. Incidentally, these (and diplomatic registrations) were the only plates where it was legal to use '00' as prefix digits.

The table below illustrates the numerical codes used:

Code Bezirk 00 East Berlin 01 Rostock 02 Schwerin 03 Neubrandenburg 04 Potsdam 05 Frankfurt 06 Cottbus 07 Magdeburg 08 Halle 09 Erfurt 10 Gera 11 Suhl 12 Dresden 13 Leipzig 14 Karl-Marx-Stadt

Diplomatic & Foreign National

Vehicles belonging to diplomats and embassy staff were issued plates which featured white alphanumerics on a reddish-brown background, whilst those of foreign nationals were the more familiar white-on-blue. In both cases, the two-letter prefix identified the vehicle's function, whilst the first two digits indicated the country it belonged to. Diplomatic plates always began with the letter C, whilst those assigned to foreigners were prefixed with Q.

The following table lists these prefixes:

Prefix Allocation CC Consular staff CD Diplomatic missions and their personnel CY Technical and administrative staff QA Foreign correspondents QB, QX Foreign trade offices, commercial offices, and industrial agencies QC Travel agencies, airlines, culture and information centres QD Others

List of numerical embassy codes:Diplomatenkennzeichen 1990. Erstakkreditierungen Deutsche Demokratische Republik (in German)

Code Country/Organisation 00 Comecon 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 91 (trade delegations) 92 (trade delegations) 93-96 Other accredited diplomatic missions in the GDR 99 Allocated to non-accredited diplomatic missions in the GDR

References

de:Kfz-Kennzeichen (DDR)#Kennzeichen in der DDR von 1953 bis 1990