The end of one of Western Europe's last frontier fences

Till the year 2006 the neighbouring cities of Constance (Germany) and Kreuzlingen (Switzerland) were seperated by a fence. The fence was built during the Second World War, in 1939 and 1940, by mutual agreement. The Germans and the Swiss both built a part of the fence. Thus, for refugees from Nazi-Germany, it became more difficult, to cross the frontier. The most famous incident at this fence was the arrest of Georg Elser. Georg Elser tried to kill Adolf Hitler, on the eighth of November 1939, in Munich in the "Münchner Bürgerbräukeller". Hitler survived and Elser was arrested in Constance, when he tried to flee to Switzerland.

After the end of the war the fence was not torn down. There even was built a new part in 1973 in the area of "Klein-Venedig", an area that was part of the lake till the 1950s, was then used as a waste disposal und finally covered with earth und secured by the border fence, up from 1973.

The relationship between the inhabitants of Constance and Kreuzlingen is good. Many inhabitants of Kreuzlingen and Konstanz, live, work, or do shopping on the other side of the frontier. So to most people the border fence was nothing else, than a strange relic, from past times. And in 2006, the fence was torn down! And now, in the are of "Klein Venedig" 22 sculptures of the artist Johannes Dörflinger mark the border line. In the beginning of 2009 Switzerland even joined the "Schengen Treaty". So today, people can walk freely from the harbour of Constance to the nearby harbour of Kreuzlingen. Tweet