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1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers
the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education
by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University
Press in the UK and certain other countries.
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Abbreviations 253
Notes 257
Bibliography 349
Index 395
vi
vi
Acknowledgments
Everything anyone has ever said about writing one’s second book is
true. It takes much longer than you think, and in the end you are indebted
to a team of medical professionals for having kept you going. I thus ac-
knowledge with profound gratitude the skills of my eye surgeons at the
Emory University Eye Center, Drs. Beck and Jain. They enabled me to
finish this book.
Several grants and fellowships made this project possible. A Leibniz
Fellowship at the Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam (ZZF) set
me on the right path to do the necessary research for the chapter on border
tourism. The ZZF’s journal also published my early work on the subject.
Summer research fellowships from the German Academic Exchange
Service (DAAD), the American Philosophical Society, and Emory’s College
Research Grants in Humanistic Inquiry supported my archival work. The
book took shape conceptually during my first full leave, supported by
Emory’s University Research Committee (URC) Award and the American
Academy in Berlin. At the American Academy, I benefited greatly from
the input and joviality of my fellow fellows, and I thank Pieter M. Judson
in particular for his friendship and generosity. Most of the writing of this
book was supported by Alexander von Humboldt Foundation fellowship.
I thank the late Axel Schildt and his colleagues, who hosted me at the
Hamburg Forschungsstelle für Zeitgeschichte, for a fabulous year. I am
grateful to the Department of History and Emory’s College of Arts and
Sciences for underwriting my research leaves. The deans generously
added a decisive completion leave semester at the very end that served the
purpose it was designed to do.
I have benefited from the expertise of numerous archivists and librar-
ians who supported my wide-ranging research. At the top of my list is
Marie Hansen who, before her well-deserved retirement, served at Emory’s
vi
viii Acknowledgments
Inter-Library Loan Department and managed to procure even the most ob-
scure publications; she never flinched even if the requested title made me
seem like a nuclear physicist. I also wish to thank the archivists and staff
at the Bundesarchiv in Koblenz (particularly Kerstin Schenke), Berlin-
Lichterfelde, and Freiburg who accommodated my many visits, some-
times at short notice. Thanks also to the archivists at the state archives
in Wiesbaden, Munich, Hannover, Wolfenbüttel, and Schleswig. Rainer
Hering at the Landesarchiv Schleswig-Holstein made an unprocessed col-
lection of customs records available to me, and this gave me valuable leads
at an early stage of my research. Herr Dziomba at the Stasi archive accom-
modated many twists and turns in my efforts to query the black box that is
the BStU. Herr Heiko Fischer hosted me at the Archive of Lower Saxony’s
State Parliament and scanned protocols not available elsewhere. Peter
Krüger in Lüchow generously opened the county archive at times that ac-
commodated my schedule. The most memorable day of archival work was
the one that I spent at the Green Belt Project office in Nuremberg, where
I read files while sitting in a beautiful garden.
My debt to colleagues, friends, and perfect strangers is so wide and
deep that chances are high I will inadvertently forget to mention someone.
People have answered my queries, taken my calls, shared memories and
materials, and commented on my work. In alphabetical order, I wish to
thank Ralf Ahrens, Reinhold Albert, Frank Altrichter, Hermann Behrens,
Dieter Bieberstein, Hendrik Bindewald, Andrew Blowers, Peter Boag,
Fritz Dieterich, Axel Doßmann, Ernst Eberhardt, Bryan Falgout, Bernd
Friedrich, Alon Gelbman, Helmut Hammerich, Winfried Heinemann,
Michael Heinz, Ingolf Hermann, Ulrike Jureit, Axel Kahrs, Bernd Katzer,
Melanie Kreutz, Markus Leibenath, Thomas Lekan, Gunnar Maus, Alfred
Milnik, Karsten Mund, Bernd Nicolai, Andrea Orzoff, Otto Puffahrt,
Gerhard Sälter, Rainer Schenk, Ralf Schmidt, Detlef Schmiechen-
Ackermann, Thomas Schmitt, Lu Seegers, Hasso Spode, Marita Sterly,
Hartmut Strunz, Christoph Strupp, Maren Ullrich, and William Glenn
Gray. Sigurd Müller and Harry Wieber granted me permission to use their
photos.
Particular thanks go to my interview partners, who took considerable
time out of their busy schedules to meet with me. I had the privilege of
learning a great deal from the conservationists with whom I talked. My
thanks to Karl Berke (Ilsenburg), Wolfram Brauneis (Eschwege), Kai Frobel
(Nuremberg), Martin Görner (Ranis), Lebrecht Jeschke (Greifswald), Ralf
Maaß (Mustin), and Hubert Weiger (Berlin).
ix
Acknowledgments ix
I had the great fortune to work alongside colleagues who were con-
ducting their own research on the Iron Curtain. The fact that my book is
the last to come out from our loose group of five means that I benefited
the most from everyone’s work. I thank Edith Sheffer, Sagi Schaefer, Jason
B. Johnson, and Yuliya Komska for their support and for their books.
As the project was taking shape, I had the chance to gather feedback
in several Forschungskolloquien, a venerable German academic tradition
in which works-in-progress are thoroughly discussed. I thank all discuss-
ants at each venue, as well as Muriel Blaive and Thomas Lindenberger
(Vienna), Ute Frevert (Berlin), Christof Mauch (Munich), Martin Sabrow
(Potsdam), Dirk Schumann (Göttingen), and Hermann Wentker (Berlin)
for inviting me. Over the years, the participants of the annual South-East
German Studies Workshop (SEGSW) found themselves on the receiving
end of multiple short papers related to my project. This gem of a workshop
provided a wonderful opportunity to polish ideas still rough around the
edges, and I thank everyone for their input.
At Emory, I benefited from collegial support in the History Department
and across campus more generally. As chair for five years, Jeffrey Lesser
advocated for my leaves and wrote many letters on my behalf. I learned a
great deal from my two co-teachers, Sander Gilman and Matthew Payne,
who sustained me with their insight, wit, and tremendous knowledge.
I also thank Becky Herring, Kelly Richmond Yates, and Allison Rollins for
having my back. Even at the busiest of times, Allison Adams’s “Sit Down
and Write” group refocused me for at least an hour per week.
Some friends and colleagues went the extra mile and read sections
of the manuscript and provided invaluable feedback at times when
their own desks were already crowded. I wish to thank Joe Perry, Adam
T. Rosenbaum, Stephen Milder, Andrew S. Tompkins, Sandra Chaney,
Stefanie M. Woodard and Sean Wempe, as well as the Emory colleagues
in Devin Stewart’s faculty writing workshop, the graduate students in the
European borderlands seminar at Emory, and the graduate students at
Berkeley’s Der Kreis group. I may not have managed to follow each and
every one of their suggestions, and any resulting shortcomings are clearly
my responsibility.
I am deeply indebted to the anonymous reviewers of the book proposal
and the manuscript. Their constructive and helpful comments allowed
me to wrap up this project. I am grateful to my language editor, Ulrike
Guthrie, who went over my English and made this book a better read. At
Oxford University Press, Alexandra Dauler and Macey Fairchild expertly
x
x Acknowledgments
Map 2 Lakes, rivers, and mountain ranges along the inter-German border
Source: Bill Nelson
xv
Introduction
On the Western Side of Germany’s Iron Curtain
On August 3, 1984, a truck bearing the identity of the fake but clev-
erly named Friedemann Grün (or Peaceman Green) company carried
Greenpeace activists into the compound of the coal-fired power station
Buschhaus near Helmstedt. Within minutes, the protesters assembled a
ladder, climbed a cooling tower, and unfurled a banner denouncing the
plant as a major polluter (Figure I.1). Buschhaus became the object of
an acute political crisis in the Federal Republic because it was slated to
open without desulfurization filters at the height of public anxiety about
acid rain and forest dieback. Although the West German government had
passed a directive in 1983 that required such filters, Buschhaus had been
authorized years earlier and was about to be grandfathered in without
them. Its supporters cited the jobs the plant would provide, its opponents
the pollution it would emit. The discord over Buschhaus entered the an-
nals of West German environmental history as a classic conflict between
economy and ecology and as an indicator of West Germany’s newly devel-
oped ecological consciousness.1
Yet what amplified the conflict was the coal power plant’s location.
Buschhaus had been built in the West German borderlands right on the
Iron Curtain. It belonged to a company, the Braunschweigische Kohle
Bergwerke (BKB), whose coal mining fields had been sliced in half by
the inter-German border in 1952. Without access to all the coal deposits,
the long-term viability of BKB was at risk; its staff therefore regarded
Buschhaus as a new lease on life. In the political economy of the Federal
Republic, the regions along the border, the “zonal borderlands” where
the BKB was located, had acquired preferential treatment as depressed
2
areas. State subsidies flowed into the border counties to create and retain
industrial jobs, hence regional political leaders’ dogged support for the
smoke-belching project. The border also magnified the environmental di-
mension of Buschhaus because it was instantly cast as a transboundary
issue. At a time when the Federal Republic was chiding East Germany
for its unparalleled sulfur dioxide emissions, allowing a coal power plant
to go online without filters right on their shared border, and upwind of
the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was diplomatically unwise. The
environmental activists picked up on the transboundary cue. On June 17,
1985, the federal holiday celebrating German unity, the organization Robin
Wood staged a protest on the border. Its banner hovered over the demar-
cation line, and a GDR watchtower formed the backdrop (Figure I.1). The
conflict over Buschhaus was much more than a clash between economy
and ecology. It was shaped by the presence of the inter-German border and
reminded everyone that Germany remained a divided country.
This book examines the consequences of the volatile inter-German
border for West Germany. It takes a fresh look at the history of the “old”
Federal Republic and the German reunification process from the spatial
perspective of the West German borderlands that emerged along the Cold
Figure I.1. On June 17, 1985, the environmental activists of Robin Wood staged
a protest against the Buschhaus coal-fired power station right on the demarcation
line against the backdrop of a GDR watchtower.
© Ullstein Bild—Ali Paczensky
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