The Impact of the Inner German Border on East Germany and West Germany - Coursework Example

The Impact of the Inner German Border on East Germany and West Germany Introduction The impact of state borders on everyday life on both sides—East Germany and West Germany-- is analysed in this paper. There are two ways to analyse this issue. First, state borders identify the scope of the political authority and control of the state. They establish and they control, for instance, the economic institution (e.g. currency, taxation, etc.), the legal institution, and way of life. Through this the state borders split a region into zones of opposite social, economic, administrative, and political systems.1 For example, as regards the two German states, this implied a federal structure on the western side with independent institution at various levels of administration, and a strong centralised government structure on the eastern side; or, in relation to agriculture, privately owned agricultural lands in Western Germany, and major associations or co-ops in Eastern Germany; or, in terms of ownership of property, private ownership in Western Germany, and state ownership in Eastern Germany.2 Second, these boundaries form distinct border zones with particular features brought about by the direct impact of the border. The limited chances of crossing the border are most important and this implies the difficulty of accessing places on the other side of the boundary. Furthermore, the border zone is at times protected by specific laws for security purposes.3 Obviously, these direct outcomes are covered up by the particular political institution. The border separated loved ones, family members, and friends, resulting in the loss of livelihood and employment on both sides if caught on the wrong side. All in all, roughly 5,000 individuals are believed to have fled East Germany by going across the border.4 Stories of brave escapes became a fascination in the mass media, such as gymnast Horst Klein, who suspended himself on a rundown cable as he advanced slowly towards the West.5 Possibly the most widely known figures of freedom were Gunter Wetzel and Hans Strelczyk, who built a hot air balloon to lift themselves over the border and finally escape the wall in 1979.6 There were also people of Berlin that escaped the border without putting their lives at risk, known as the Grenzgangers who were allowed to take a job in the West, with its political liberty, capitalist system, and bigger wages.7 Astrid Eckert, a historian of contemporary Germany, re-examined West Germany’s history throughout the Cold War by concentrating on its most burdened physical zone—the boundary with its ideological or socio-political enemy, socialist East Germany.8 The Fulton Speech of Winston Churchill in 1947 had been the origin of the concept of the Iron Curtain: From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in some cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.9 From the moment Soviet rule collapsed and lost its influence and power, the Iron Curtain’s history has been widely examined and talked about with regard to the history of the German Democratic Republic (GDR).10 This controversial border throughout the Cold War did, in any case, reveal the most negative proof of the absence of political rightfulness or validity of the GDR.11 However, the inter-German boundary did not merely have an impact on East Germany. Eckert claims that the border, in dividing a formerly united land mass and society, the new border had huge and shifting political, economic, and social consequences observed and experienced until now; for instance, in property assessment, pollution policies, and so on.12 Generally, Eckert is interested in knowing how people of West Germany of the period communicated and interrelated with the growing boundary on the eastern side. She studies the Iron Curtain as a current symbol of Western pop culture and tourist spot.13 Furthermore, and possibly most challenging, Eckert adopts an environmental view of modern German history by taking into consideration the diverse effects of the border on the immediate ecosystem and landscape. She argues by explaining how the inner German border situated at the outside of the Federal Republic and at the centre of its modern and disturbing past, became important to the growth of the new state of West Germany.14 Overview: The Inner German Border In 1943, at the Conference of Teheran, the Soviet Union, the U.S., and U.K. formed the European Advisory Commission (EAC) so as to discuss suggestions for the dividing of Germany into three territories. The EAC ended its discussions with a ‘Protocol regarding the occupation zones in Germany and the Administration of Greater Berlin’.15 As stated in this protocol, the border between the Western allies’ occupation territories on the one side and the Soviet Occupational Zone was identified as the “line of the western boundaries of the German states of Mecklenburg in the north, the Prussian province of Saxony (not to be confused with the state of Saxony) in the centre, and of Thuringia in the south.”16 This broad demarcation by making use of historical borders was smoothed down in numerous areas for practical purposes immediately after the war. It must be bear in mind that the earlier German boundaries of provinces and states had been accessible for many decades, roughly from 1834, due to the creation of the German Customs Union, or from 1871 with the establishment of the second German Empire. The borders had been demoted to a mere governmental use.17 With the formation of the Federal Republic of Germany and the establishment of the GDR in 1949, the boundary between the occupation areas was changed into an actual state boundary, even though it was not approved by the Federal Republic of Germany in the past.18 Initially the boundary was left open for or accessible to various cross-border exchanges, as well as a huge extent of unlawful border transactions. Prior to 1952 there were a huge number of authorised travellers between West and East Germany; just then was this form of passage stopped.19 In 1961, at the same time as the building of the Berlin Wall, the inner-German border was closed by the GDR regime. Slowly but surely, the eastern side of the border took on the feature of a wall or buttress. An enclosure of barbed wire was constructed and a chain of areas was formed nearby the border in 195120: First, a 10-metre Controlled Zone where the use of firearms was permitted for GDR border troops; second, a 500-metre Security Zone, which could be entered solely by GDR subjects with a special permit, and only during daylight (restaurants, cinemas, pensions, health resorts and so on were closed down); and, third, further inland there followed a 5-kilometre Restricted Zone, where the residents were given a special stamp on their identity card for unlimited permission to enter and to leave the zone, but only for the ‘inland’ part of the GDR (that is, this did not permit visits to neighbouring villages in the Restricted Zone).21 But these structures and regulations failed to control the increasing immigrants from the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany. In spite of these barriers, as a whole the inner-German border has on no occasion been as firm, secure, and rigid as, for instance, the boundary between North and South Korea. Throughout its presence, legal chances to go across the boundary were granted at all times, although strictly limited by bureaucratic barriers. Almost all of the commuters going across the boundary journeyed from West to East.22 The GDR officials never granted all family members authorisation to travel to the West for they doubted they would ever return. At the same time, telephone and main communications were granted, although all phone calls were monitored and packages and letters scrutinised.23 Furthermore, it is important to mention that exclusive settlements for the four Allied countries allowed traffic links between West Berlin and the Federal Republic of Germany along marked passages by air, by rail, and by land. Only land connections were meddled upon and disrupted by the Berlin blockade.24 The Inner German Border’s Effect on Daily Life The inner German border changed instantly from a sign of Cold War Communist coercion into a sign of liberty and freedom. It would require two decades for the German people to go back to seeing the border in such manner.25 In any case, they had experienced and existed with the border for over thirty years and suffered the split of their nation between capitalist, democratic West Germany and communist East Germany for over forty years. For them, thinking about the Berlin Wall’s history was painful. Germans had killed their fellow Germans for attempting to cross the wall and travel from east to west.26 After unification, there were prosecutions of senior political and military officers and border guards from the previous communist GDR, yet then the German officials and the masses exerted their best effort not to remember the border. It was better for them to abandon it and move on.27 During that time, the main concern for the people of Berlin was to break down the border defences—thick layers of inner and outer barriers, guard posts, enclosures, and patrol roads—which made up the so-called ‘death strip’ of Berlin Wall.28 After almost three decades, it was time for a reunification. There were roads to be opened again, train and subway systems to be restored, and watercourses to be repaired. In a reunited Berlin, the 27-mile-long tear of the Wall through the urban centre currently symbolised needed actual land, later to be occupied by offices, apartments, roads, and shopping malls.29 Soon after the opening of the Wall, Willy Brandt, the previous West German prime minister and West Berlin mayor, talked to a mass of people outside the city hall of West Berlin, requesting that “a piece of this dreadful edifice should be left standing as a historical monstrosity”30 for later generations to witness. While the border was accessible for legally allowed inter-state transactions, it was closely shut for almost all ‘low-level’ purposes.31 The boundary zones on both sides became highly detached, indifferent places. They evolved into fringe areas with all the usual structural problems —absence of vocational training and educational prospects, emigration of highly skilled individuals, reduction in rates of employment, and lack of investment—particularly concerning their diversity, worsening of agriculture, reduction of infrastructure, and ageing of the surviving population.32 East and West Germany responded to these changes differently—in the Federal Republic the decline was controlled by systems of public support, and since 1971 by a particular system sustaining and aiding the belt along the boundary.33 Support was provided to all cities and districts if more than half of their territory, or if more than half of the population, was situated 40 kilometres and below from the inner-German border, as well as the separate belt along the Baltic Sea coast and Czechoslovakian border.34 Huge sums of resources were invested in the rebuilding and upgrading of cities and villages, in enhancing the practical infrastructure (e.g. sewerage, fresh water, road systems, etc.), in constructing new village community halls, leisure areas, sports fields, new schools, and on aiding the building of new businesses and factories.35 Generally these steps have stopped the complete collapse of the West German border zone, in spite of the fact that the formation of new employment prospects has not been quite effective—quite frequently the venture capitalists made use of tax discounts and publicly endorsed cheap credits just for the duration of time that was required to prevent repayment, and afterwards terminated their enterprises.36 In numerous other instances divisions of more centrally situated enterprises were established and operated in the West German border zone in times of profitable business situations and shut down in periods of economic slump.37 Yet, the improved or newly built infrastructure remains hence the overall context for the standard of living in this zone has evolved in a positive manner. Certain areas of the West German boundary gained financially from the formation of the inner-German border. The ‘Coburg Land’ located at the southern part of the Thuringian Forest, for instance, has gained from the availability of a skilled labour force and capitalists from the GDR, or the Soviet Occupational Zone, so as to live or inhabit the western side of the boundary and to carry on with their previous venture.38 Through this the Coburg Land witnessed a positive growth, further aided by the fact that the more and more rigid border regulations limited competition from the eastern side of the border.39 The boundary area on the eastern side mostly deteriorated in economic terms. The major difference between this area and its counterpart in the western side comes from the defence actions in the eastern side. The formation of the Security Zone and the Restricted Zone formed a barrier in the boundary.40 In formal documents this barrier was aimed at presumed hostility from the west, but in truth it was built to stop immigrants from the east from abandoning the country. Thus a large number of individuals who were insecure in political terms were taken away and relocated somewhere else.41 Numerous younger individuals abandoned the border zone so as to look for greener pastures or better jobs and mostly higher living standards somewhere else in the GDR. The GDR officials made no attempt to strengthen the economy or to upgrade the infrastructure in the boundary zone. But then, they were worried about the continuously dropping number of people residing in the zone. Thus all the inhabitants of this area acquired a 15% addition to their earnings, and credits for privately owned single-family residential homes were provide much more generously than in the GDR centre.42 Ultimately, these additional costs alongside numerous problems caused by the difficult accessibility of this zone resulted in an ultimate decline in the part of the Restricted Zone in the 1970s.43 The state border was unexpectedly opened in 1989. Immediately after the border infrastructure was put down and eradicated. People from the west and east side were granted freedom to go across the boundary with no official limitations. Yet, after the removal of the border line there remained critical problems and dissimilarities as far as a favourable and collective change is involved.44 It is not just an issue of renovating deteriorating infrastructure, for instance damaged bridges going across the border streams, or streets crossed by the previous boundary. The major issue comes from the fact that no infrastructure was upgraded or expanded after the 1940s.45 The streets or thoroughfares are very narrow or undeveloped for the needs of current road traffic, and the disrupted railway networks were removed on the GDR centre, in order for a totally new and wider structure has to be rebuilt. The same problems were experienced in electric systems, sewerage networks, and waterways.46 Another issue stems from the opposing tenure-ship processes between east and west. While exclusive privileges of GDR locals in Western Germany stayed intact (West German occupants had to give rent payment), the property of West German planters on the eastern part of the border was taken and transferred to one of the major co-ops. It is a quite complex procedure to recover the land, in spite of the fact that the Federal administration has made a decision to abide by the idea of ‘retrocession before compensation’47. Quite frequently the lands are completely incorporated in a quite different agricultural structure and at times it is even hard to find the old parcels of land since the GDR officials did not maintain full land records. In the Controlled Zone, measuring 10 metres, and in several other sites of strategic value the agricultural parcels were handed over to the GDR army or to other government officials, usually without written agreement.48 The border groups and the state had almost total power, and the co-ops had no oppositions because all surrendered parcels of fertile land lowered the yield quota required by the state planning agency. In the deeper interior there is frequently the likelihood of some contract or settlement, because in numerous instances the West German property-owners are not that keen on becoming agriculturalists in the new states. Nearby the previous border the condition is not like for the planter from the West who is raising the claim usually resides on the other part of the border line and is thus willing to include his eastern lands instantly to his West German lands.49 An additional difficult and fascinating issue arises at the previous boundary—in the previous GDR the population of actual farmers has dropped significantly because the major co-ops required numerous experts (e.g. accountants, veterinarians, chemists, etc.) but a small number of farmers.50 Thus the agricultural system in the new states will certainly not go back to the old structure of smallholders. New forms of private co-ops or corporate farms will become suggestive of the agrarian system in the previous GDR—and these two quite distinct forms of farming at the previous inner-German border are situated against each other.51 A key reform has taken place to the transportation networks due to the fact that in the eastern side a huge number of workers lost their jobs after the opening of the boundary and after the shift from socialism to a market-based structure. There has been a marked increase in the number of travellers from the eastern side to employment in the west, including a continuing flow of Germans from the eastern side to the western part.52 Another transformation has occurred concerning the central locations and their operational zones. The mobility of people was no longer limited by any border lines, thus they were freer to make a decision for themselves where to purchase products or where to avail services. Due to the greater quality of products, services, and stores on the west most of the occupants of the eastern boundary zone often go to central places in the west.53 As a result, the service and retail industries in the west have expanded significantly. Purchasing ability is shifting from the eastern to the western part hence the restoration of the eastern boundary zone is further impaired.54 The general outcome of the removal of the inner-German border is the transition of the border area from an outside edge to the heart of Europe and Germany. This does not imply that the entire border belt will turn into a flourishing zone. Several areas will stay poor in economic terms and far from modern progress.55 Moreover, the border area provides means to improve the natural environment, because the border zone was nearly intact for many years and thus provides a wide range of animals and plants. Yet, generally the openness of this border area has grown enormously hence some parts will transform their characteristics in the foreseeable future. 56 Such geographical reassessment does not relate merely to the border area. Huge portions of Germany are transforming in terms of their geographical importance due to the removal of the inner-German boundary; and such will affect the border zone itself. Possibly the most apparent transformation will be the major communication system. Until 1989 the key traffic routes were from the northern to southern parts in East Germany and West Germany; the east-west routes were largely disrupted.57 At present, one can notice a change in these relationships, and such will offer good prospects for the sites where a new alliance goes across the previous inner-German border. Through this the Central European axis between the Baltic States, Kaliningrad, Rotterdam-Hanover-Berlin-Moscow, Brussels, and London will become of the most important European growth alliances, and the previous boundary is situated at the core of this axis.58 As a result, this previously silent, fixed, cleared out, and financially poor zone will become the focus of future expansions and development projects. The geographical notions of both east and west have to be changed, yet the thinking of policymakers and developers from both east and west has not constantly adjusted to the new condition.59 Obviously, all sectors of European countries go through constant transformation; but the zone near the previous state boundary between the Federal Republic of Germany and GDR will undergo a more profound, intense, and large-scale transformation. Conclusions The most known impact of German unification was the removal of the border dividing East and West Germany. The border was certainly opened parallel to the opening of the Berlin Wall, but the course may be argued to have begun earlier with the numerous people of East Germany fleeing to the western side. The inner-German border was obviously the works of the GDR, intended to confine its people within its borders. However, the impact of this border zone was greatly felt, not by the central authority per se, but by the ordinary citizens who were affected by loss of employment opportunities, lack of economic and social support, separation from their loved ones and friends, and so on. Works Cited Ciccarelli, Andrea. “Crossing borders: Claudio Magris and the aesthetic of the other side.” Journal of European Studies 42.4 (2012): 342-361. Print. Eder, Klaus. “Europe’s Borders: The Narrative Construction of the Boundaries of Europe.” European Journal of Social Theory 9.2 (2006): 255-271. Print. Grundy-Warr, Carl. Eurasia: World Boundaries. UK: Routledge, 2002. Print. Harbutt, Fraser. The Iron Curtain. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1988. Print. Harrison, Hope. “From Shame to Pride: The Fall of the Berlin Wall through German Eyes.” The Wilson Quarterly N.p., 2015. Web. 16 March 2015. Read More