Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Out of Germany: Painful scars mark a country's deep divisions

Steve Crawshaw
Friday 21 May 1993 23:02 BST
Comments

HERRNBURG - In the centre of this quiet east German village a gleaming new yellow sign points the way to the west: 'Lubeck: 2km'. You have to watch carefully, to notice the old border. As you drive out of the village, you cross a small patch of grassy land where you can see the tell-tale signs: a strip of sand; newly-planted trees along the resurfaced road; concrete tracks, where the border guards used to drive up and down, looking for somebody to shoot. And that's it: you've arrived in the west German town of Lubeck.

When the physical border between west and east still existed, the lethal nature of the cordon sanitaire made the distance between the two sides seem dauntingly wide. At Herrnburg, there was no crossing point, so the west German road simply ended in the middle of nowhere. There were many layers of separation: a barrier across the road, then some cleared ground, an electrified fence, a minefield, raked sand, a deep ditch, watchtowers, and a forbidden zone beyond that. Now, there's just that tiny stretch of fallow land, which separates the affluence of Lubeck's suburbs, from the poverty of Herrnburg and the east.

In theory, Herrnburg and Lubeck are part of the same country, once more; in practice, they are scarcely on the same planet. To visit Herrnburg, and the surrounding villages, is to take a trip back in time. During the Communist era, slogans were added as ideological decoration. Outside Herrnburg's cow-stalls, the slogan proclaimed: 'Marxism is all- powerful.' Everything else has remained frozen for 50 years. The villages are lost in the past: half-timbered barns and farmhouses, decaying amid the sleepy countryside. A huge amount of building is going on and private restaurants have opened up. In the centre of Herrnburg, there is a branch of Edeka, the west's supermarket chain. But you always know whether you are in west or east. The contrast is between Buckinghamshire and Bulgaria.

In the Blockhouse snack bar, on the edge of the village, there is little enthusiasm for the changes that have taken place. A 70-year-old, who used to work on the local farm, complains: 'Things were quiet, then. And things cost less, too.'

Wolfgang Hollnagel, who works on the railways, claims: 'We never thought about the border. It was just there. Occasionally, we used to joke: 'Let's go across to Lubeck for a cup of coffee.' But that was all.' Now, he says, Lubeck is too expensive to visit.

The bar owner, Peter Novosilski, is also from the east - Dunkeldeutschland or 'Dark Germany', as he calls it. He is pleased with his lot; the bar does flourishing business. But, he says, the great majority of his customers are western day-trippers, heading off for a few hours in the east German countryside.

Even in the church, there is a hint of nostalgia for the old days. Herrnburg, because of its proximity to the west, was forbidden territory, even for east German citizens, unless they had special passes; church services were difficult to organise.

But Anneliese Maack, the church secretary, says not everything was bad: 'Break-ins did not exist. At home, you could always leave the doors and windows open. People helped each other a lot, too.' Unlike many in the east, she is in no doubt that things are better, on balance. 'Before, you couldn't buy even the plainest thing. Now, I am paying 10 times as much rent, and our salaries aren't the same as the Wessis (west Germans). But at least I can buy something for my money.'

Overall, though, it is the sharpness of the dividing line which is striking, in Herrnburg and elsewhere. There are no fences, no guns, no watchtowers. But the line still runs across the stretch of grass that separates Lubeck and Herrnburg - democratic affluence, on the one hand, and post-totalitarian confusion, on the other. Soon, the last visual traces of the border will vanish completely. But it will be many years before the mental barriers are erased.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in