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How open borders should be is always a highly emotional topic.
There is currently a dispute about whether controls at the German external borders, which, with the exception of the line to Switzerland, are also EU internal borders, can prevent the spread of mutations of the Corona virus.
So what do such border closings (felt or actual, depending on the intensity of the state measures) bring?
What about the openness of borders in a historical perspective?
In his most recent book, published in September 2020, the retired ancient and cultural historian Alexander Demandt shed light on the past and present of the phenomenon “borders”.
"Only a few weeks after the manuscript was completed," he writes in an "addendum on the occasion," the "subject of 'borders' suddenly gained new importance." Up until then, it was topical, especially with regard to the influx of refugees and migrants, now all of a sudden it was about fighting a virus.
"The willingness to open the borders in favor of the foreigners has taken a back seat to the need to close the borders in favor of the locals", Demandt summarizes the prevailing attitude in politics.
The word “borders” has many meanings; it can also separate language areas from one another as well as purely geologically different types of landscape or regions with different religious backgrounds.
But what is meant in the public discussion is mostly political boundaries between states, usually nation states;
Today (unlike in the Soviet Union until the 1980s) there are hardly any border controls within states recognized under international law.
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In addition to state power and the people of the state, state borders are considered to be constitutive for every state - the corresponding three-element theory was formulated by the constitutional lawyer Georg Jellinek in 1900.
The reverse is true only to a limited extent - the absence of controlled borders does not deprive a state of its statehood.
But the frequency with which this claim keeps coming up shows the explosiveness of the topic.
Even in antiquity there were occasional border fortifications, such as the Roman Limes barriers in present-day Germany or Hadrian's Wall between present-day England and Scotland.
But they were at least as much separating as they were connecting.
Actually political borders can be made out in Europe from the early modern period, in the form of continuous fences even from the 19th century.
From 1915 to 1918 a high voltage barrier reached from Preuswald to Knokke
Source: Nationaal Archief / Collectie Spaarnestad Photo / Het Leven / Fotograaf onbekend
Publication of this picture under the license CC BY-SA 3.0
The first real military border in Central Europe was established in 1915 - between Belgium and the Netherlands.
German troops were responsible, who wanted to prevent any exchange across the hitherto "green border" between the neutral Netherlands and the occupied part of Belgium.
The high-voltage barrier extended over hundreds of kilometers from Preuswald to the North Sea coast east of the seaside resort of Knokke.
Between September 1915 and October 1918 several hundred people died trying to get over this fence, from electric shocks or from gunshots by the guards.
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The Third Reich blocked its external borders with more or less well-developed and controlled fences to prevent refugees from leaving the country.
But in his role as police chief of the Nazi regime, Himmler did not go to such lengths as in the First World War on the Belgian-Dutch border.
Only the East German socialists did a similar thing again.
Immediately after 1945, the internal demarcation lines between the four occupation zones of Germany were officially only allowed to be crossed with interzone passports, but that was only a bureaucratic obstacle that played a role when traveling by train or car across the demarcation lines.
At the end of May 1952, a ditch separated the French sector of West Berlin from the State of Brandenburg (GDR)
Source: picture-alliance / Günter Bratk
In the Federal Republic of Germany, Article 11 of the Basic Law has applied to all Germans since 1949, which may only be restricted in individual cases precisely defined in the law.
An interzone pass was still required for trips to the GDR, but this practically did not affect “small border traffic”.
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In order to prevent escapes, the SED dictatorship closed the inner-German border on May 26, 1952.
On a length of about 1400 kilometers from Dassow on the Baltic Sea to the Vogtland, restricted areas up to five kilometers wide were created;
In the GDR area directly on the demarcation line, trenches and fences and "forensic security strips" raked east of them were created.
The small border traffic was thus effectively eliminated;
Crossing the line was only legally possible via checkpoints.
Even at this border, GDR border guards shot with intent to kill.
The four-power city of Berlin was a special case: the inner-city “border” between the three western and the Soviet sectors remained open, even though the GDR had barriers and barriers set up here as well.
Along the "border" between the three western sectors and the state of Brandenburg (which was also dissolved two months later) GDR police officers set up the first barriers such as hunter fences and the like - unmistakable but surmountable.
On April 12, 1955, the SED Politburo, as has now become known through research by the city historian Ingmar Arnold from the Berliner Unterwelten Association, discussed a plan by the then Stasi chief Ernst Wollweber “for increased security measures along the sector borders in Berlin”.
Arnold found the relevant report by a US agent in the masses of the CIA documents now released.
Wollweber suggested “closing the sector borders in Berlin with the exception of 20 official border crossings”.
The Barracked People's Police were supposed to take over patrols along the inner-city sector boundaries, the Stasi chief wanted the checkpoints to be “occupied by the border police as before”, but they were to be “reinforced by members of the workers' militia”.
The strong man of the SED, Walter Ulbricht, recommended acceptance, while the then GDR Interior Minister Willi Stoph spoke out against it - such restrictions could have “unforeseen consequences”.
The agent summarized the further course of the meeting and summed up: "Ulbricht's attempt to strengthen his position in the SED Politburo failed."
Six years later it was different: In view of the ever increasing number of GDR citizens who turned their backs on the SED dictatorship via the "loophole" West Berlin, Ulbricht was able to achieve his goal of isolating West Berlin as completely as possible.
From August 13, 1961, GDR uniforms erected the Berlin Wall, on which hundreds of GDR citizens were killed by direct violence or in harassing controls until 1989.
In addition, well over a thousand people died at the same time on the inner-German border.
In 2015, the police directed refugees to an emergency shelter in Bavaria
Source: picture alliance / dpa
After the peaceful fall of the Berlin Wall on the night of November 9th to 10th, 1989, border closures were initially unpopular in reunified Germany.
However, that changed fundamentally in the refugee and migration crisis from 2015 onwards. Chancellor Angela Merkel kept the German borders open by effectively moving the blockade to the Balkans.
For this she was massively attacked by the right-wing conservative side.
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In the course of the corona crisis and the helpless action of the federal government in 2020/21, strong border controls have suddenly become the method of choice again.
However, to an unfit.
Because while you can push people back to their limits without the necessary papers, you cannot do so with viruses in people's bodies due to the principle involved.
Alexander Demandt (born 1937) taught ancient history at the Free University of Berlin
Source: picture-alliance / ZB
Alexander Demandt: “Limits. History and present". (Propylaea, Berlin. 656 pp., 28 euros)
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