Zone border area
The border area was a 40-kilometer-wide strip of territory of the Federal Republic along the border with the GDR (emerged from the Soviet occupation zone and still referred to as the zone in the west ), continued along the German border with Czechoslovakia until it touched the border with Austria . The associated municipalities were listed in detail in the annex to the Zone Edge Promotion Act .
After the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic in 1949, the inner-German demarcation line became the inner-German border . It ran from the Baltic coast near Lübeck in Schleswig-Holstein to the state border between the Federal Republic of Germany and Czechoslovakia . For example, the regions of Wendland and Harz in Lower Saxony , Eschwege and Rhön in Hesse and Lower Franconia , and Upper Franconia around Coburg and Hof were in the border area . But also eastern Upper Franconia, the Upper Palatinate and the Bavarian Forest were included because of their location on the border with the ČSSR, which also weakened the economic structure.
Importance of the peripheral location
Growing traffic and economic relations within contiguous regions were interrupted by the increasingly strict closure of the zone border in the course of the Cold War . Their marginal location led to structural problems and / or intensified existing difficulties over the long term. Despite the reunification, these disadvantages persist for large parts to this day.
From the beginning of the Cold War until after 1989 there was a general flight ban along the border strip , the so-called Air Defense Identification Zone of NATO , with the exception of the three flight corridors to West Berlin . There was also an overlap within a 30 km strip: For all matters relating to the border, the police were responsible for the Federal Border Guard (today's Federal Police ), while the “normal” police tasks were carried out by the respective state police. In addition, within the was Customs frontier districts and the Customs jurisdiction, where the GDR was released for a zero duty abroad.
In the areas on the western side of the border, economic development could not keep pace with that in the rest of the country. By the zone edge funding , z. For example, by tax relief , improved write-offs or investment grants was structural policy tries to compensate for the disadvantages of the boundary layer. In 1965, the zone border promotion was elevated to a principle of spatial planning policy. It can be seen as a forerunner of the east in the new federal states from 1990 onwards.
Counterpart in the east
On the eastern side, two specially created military formations were used to secure the border, the border troops of the GDR , several tens of thousands of men, and the Czechoslovak border guard PS . The term border zone was not used on the eastern side of the border. In the GDR, the economic performance of the border areas came to a virtual standstill, thanks to measures to prevent people from fleeing the GDR such as forced resettlement from villages along the border (" Ungeziefer ") and the establishment of an approximately five-kilometer-wide restricted area that only Entry permit could be entered.
From 1989
After the fall of the Berlin Wall and before reunification, the interrupted traffic connections between East and West Germany were largely restored. As part of the German unity transport project , all major trunk roads were expanded after reunification, and new connections were and will be created, as not all projects have been completed so far. After reunification , the zone border funding was ended. The companies were now even exposed to a subsidy gradient at their expense due to the subsidies in the context of Aufbau Ost . The Zone Edge Promotion Act was repealed with effect from April 25, 2006.
literature
- Hans-Joachim Bürkner: "Problems of regional development in the Lower Saxony zone border area before and after German unification." In the economy in divided and united Germany. Edited by Karl Eckart and Jörg Roesler (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999), 277–297.
- Hans Kiemstedt: Zone border area . In: Concise dictionary of spatial research and spatial planning , Vol. 3. Jänecke, Hannover 1970, Sp. 3871–3878.
- Hans-Jörg Sander: The border area (problem areas of Europe, Vol. 4). Aulis, Cologne 1988.
- Bernd Weisbrod (Ed.): Grenzland. Contributions to the history of the German-German border. Hahn'sche Buchhandlung, Hanover 1993.
- Frank Altrichter: Grenzlandproblematik (after 1918). In: Historical Lexicon of Bavaria. URL: < http://www.historisches-lexikon-bayerns.de/artikel/artikel_46076 > (November 25, 2013)
See also
- German division and border fortifications of Czechoslovakia in the Cold War
- Joint task to improve the regional economic structure
Web links
- Literature on the border area in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ↑ Minutes of the cabinet meeting to prepare for the establishment of a development area along the eastern border (item on the agenda of the 2nd funding program for the border strip along the Iron Curtain, BMWi )
- ↑ “The zone border area was a 40 km wide strip on the eastern edge of the old federal territory from the Baltic Sea to the Danube along the border with the former GDR; certain city and rural districts in the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Hesse and Bavaria. "
- ↑ https://beck-online.beck.de/default.aspx?vpath=bibdata%2fkomm%2fBluemich_89%2fZRFG%2fcont%2fBluemich.ZRFG.G555.htm legal text on beck-online.de
- ↑ Zonenrandförderungsgesetz ZRFG http://www.buzer.de/gesetz/6859/index.htm