Yes, it was absolutely possible for West Germans to visit the GDR (East Germany). In fact, doing so was actively encouraged by West Germany. If I recall correctly, there wasn’t even that much red tape involved. You didn’t even need a passport. There were scrupulous checks by the East German border guards, but compared to post 9/11 airport security, it wasn’t all that extreme. For instance, my late uncle was a bit of a loudmouth and prankster. When he entered East Germany for a family visit, he could not stop himself and he teased the East German border guards. My uncle is no longer with us, but I’m convinced that if he behaved like that at a TSA checkpoint, he would be pulled away and shackled.
Visitors to East Germany from the West were required to exchange 25 Deutschmarks (West) for the same amount of East German Deutschmarks for every day of their stay. This was a money-making scheme on the part of the East German government since there wasn’t really that much to spend the money on. One option was to buy cheap books (classics and some technical literature).
East Germans usually weren’t allowed to travel to the West, only individuals who were deemed loyal to the East German state. This included top athletes who sometimes took the opportunity to defect.
East German retirees/old age pensioners were also allowed to travel to West Germany (starting in the early 1970s). Every East German who entered West Germany was entitled to receive a payment from the German government (hard West German cash). This proved to be a problem when the Berlin wall fell in 1989 and suddenly millions of East Germans came to the West and claimed their money (Chancellor Helmut Kohl brought this up in a conversation with POTUS George H. W. Bush).
Actually West Germans did need a passport and there was more red tape involved than I remembered [1], but the obstacles were by no means insurmountable.
Forgive me for asking a fundamental question, but some answers in this thread seem to be conflating traveling West to East Germany with traveling West to East Berlin. These are different scenarios, no? Could someone illuminate? Thanks.
Yes. There were different (i. e. more liberal) rules for visits (day trips) from West Berlin to East Berlin. In addition to that, military personnel from the US, the UK and France did not have to pass East German checkpoints anyway (→ Checkpoint Charlie).
For practical purposes, the scenarios were different because the East German regime applied different rules to West Germany and West Berlin. Going from West to East Berlin was, for a long time, more difficult than going from West to East Germany. Over the course of time, though, in times of détente, the differences were not applied harshly, with East Germany becoming more open towards Westerners (also for need of cash). In the later 1980s, AFAIK it wouldn’t have been unthinkable for a West Berliner to go to East Berlin just for a night at the opera, for instance.
Legally, from the Eastern perspective was always that West Berlin was not part of West Germany (hence the different rules). The position of the West was not so clear. For most practical purposes, West Berlin was run as a state of West Germany (the most important difference being that the West German conscription didn’t apply); the West Berlin constitution stated that it was a state of West Germany, and West German courts would routinely hear appeals from West Berlin courts. The Western Allies (US, UK and France) were outspoken in emphasising West Berlin’s special status, owing to the privileges which that status gave them and which remained in effect until 1990.
The situation at the East German checkpoints in Berlin was a regular new item especially on holidays. On Christmas Eve, the main evening news show on German TV always carried a story about how smoothly (or not) the East Germans processed visitors from the West who wanted to spend at least some hours with family in the East.