Via Romea Germanica Day 29: Meiningen - Eussenhausen (Mellrichstadt)

Jetzt sind wir in einer Situation, in der wieder zusammenwächst, was zusammengehört.

("Now we are in a situation where what belongs together, will grow back together.")

- Willy Brandt, Berlin radio interview on November 10, 1989 (the day after the abolition of intra-German border controls)

Via Romea marker on the rubble of the former border wall

My day began with 10 kilometres walking out of Meiningen along a paved cycling track. But my feet didn't mind the asphalt so much after a good night's rest! After passing through the pretty village of Sülzfeld, I realised that my gps track of the entire Via Romea Germanica route in Germany differed from the signage on the ground, and from the official track of this individual stage on Outdooractive. I decided to follow the latter, as it was probably more up to date, and it looked like it would take me to some interesting places!

The route eventually left the cycling track to follow a dirt track through a forest, where there were signs identifying various tree species and a wooden "sofa" beside a fenced-in area with tame deer. The deer were very curious and approached the fence, taking a closer look at me, and I at them. I'm not sure whether the fence was to protect the deer, or to protect the plants in the rest of the forest from the deer; within the fenced-in area, the grass was very short, and there was no undergrowth left at all! 

I came out of the forest and onto a paved road leading to the Deutsch-Deutsche Grenze, the former Inner German Border. Time to cross from Thüringen into Bayern, or Bavaria - and back onto the western side of the former border! 

As when I crossed into the former DDR almost two weeks ago, as described in my May 3 blog entry, it was an emotional experience. I approached the former border along a road made for East German tanks, leading up to a hilltop observation tower. 

A cross has now been erected, engraved with the words Frieden sei dieser Welt beschieden: "May there be peace on earth", beside the old observation tower. This was where East German border guards kept watch, with orders to shoot anyone who attempted to cross the border; approximately a thousand people died attempting to cross over the course of the border's existence. 

A sign along the trail told the story of one spectacular successful escape at this very location, by a street sweeper, according to the automatic translation, which I quote below with only a few adjustments!

Escape with the sweeper

On May 24, 1989, 62-year-old Helmut Wenzel, a professional driver from Meiningen, had the task of sweeping the road from Meiningen to the border with his sweeper. Before entering the border section, he was given the usual instructions and instructions by Major Huck, the officer on duty at the border crossing point. In the section between the observation tower and the border, the driver was personally supervised by the major. At around 8:40 a.m., Wenzel swept the right side of the road in the direction of Eußenhausen; instead of turning around at the border, he accelerated, ignoring the stop sign and the major's calls. He did not stop until he reached the western control building, informed the border police officer of his escape, and was immediately directed behind the office building out of the major's range and sight. Helmut Wenzel stated that the reason for his escape was that his wife did not want to return to the GDR after a three-week visit to North Rhine-Westphalia. The People's Police had known about the wife's visit, but did not consider Wenzel's work directly on the border risky, because he had already been doing this work for years. 

The trees were cleared from a broad swathe of land on the East German side, to make it easier to spot anyone attempting to make the crossing. Thirty-five years later, this strip is still clear of trees, but now it is planted with wheat; I crossed these vast wheatfields just as rain began to fall, with no shelter in sight!

I walked along the former border, which is still the boundary between the regions of Thüringen and Bayern, or Bavaria, for a kilometre or so, under a steadily falling rain. The boundary, here unmarked, and the path went into the trees, where I was sheltered from the rain but stopped nonetheless to put on my poncho.

By an old boundary stone, probably predating the wall

I came out onto a highway, with a sign commemorating the former border, which divided not only the country of Germany but an entire continent. Now, it is a walking and cycling path: the Grünes Band or Green Belt in Germany, the Iron Curtain Trail across all of Europe. 

On the other side of the road was a sculpture garden featuring artworks inspired by the former wall. At the entrance to the sculpture garden, another panel told the story of what happened at this very spot on November 9, 1989.

9.11.89: The border crossing point and the opening of the border

With the announcement on 9.11.89 that all GDR citizens were now free to travel, the whole of Germany was gripped by tremendous euphoria. The following days and nights were marked by total traffic chaos at the Eußenhausen-Henneberg border crossing point. Many thousands and later tens of thousands of GDR citizens used the opportunity to make their first visits to the West.

Unmissable queues of people formed in the East in front of the visa issuing offices and in the West everywhere where welcome money was paid out - in Mellrichstadt, Bad Neustadt, Ostheim v. d. Rhön and Fladungen. Almost every day, new "holes" appeared in the once insurmountable border fence. When, after Christmas, West Germans were able to visit the GDR without a visa or forced exchange, the first part of the long-awaited reunification was complete, the reunification of people from East and West. "We greet our German compatriots," and similar texts were written on the banners of the hastily erected signs on streets and town entrances, expressing the great warmth with which people approached each other after 40 years of separation. Whether the reunification of the states would follow was still completely open at this time. 

I stopped for a lunch break under "The Golden Bridge", an art project in the sculpture garden: a wooden bridge spanning the former border, with a sort of art gallery on its underside featuring paintings inspired by the theme of division and reunification. 

"We said goodbye to our children, without knowing if we would ever see them again. 9 October 1989, Leipzig"

I hung my rain poncho to dry on a former boundary stone - dating from well before the wall, from the 18th century - and ate a cheese sandwich and half of my egg salad, taking care to save the other half, and the other sandwich, for dinner, as I knew I would have nothing else at hand. While eating I realised that my phone was not charging from my power bank, which I bought in Portugal five years ago in a similar situation, and which appears to be on its last legs! 

What followed was a race to arrive at Pension Euring in Eussenhausen before the battery on my phone went dead! 😆

On the way, I passed through the Grenzemuseum, which is actually the former border crossing point, not sure whether in its exact location or shifted slightly, to the side of the main road. 

The border fence was made of expanded sheet metal, which is impossible to climb

The western side of the former border was also heavily guarded, as another information placard reported. 

1945 - 1989: The US observation point

The US Army had been present on the inner-German border since 1945: they drove along the border with patrols in jeeps or armored reconnaissance vehicles. In the 1970s they limited their observation to individual observation bases. These initially consisted of earth bunkers, later of solid houses on the Abtsberg near Brüchs, between Sondheim and RoBrieth and the Kehrspitze near the Schanz. There the entire hilltop was fenced in with barbed wire. Even border officials from the Federal Republic were only allowed to enter the area with a special pass from the MIC (US Army Military Intelligence). The post was manned day and night by 4 soldiers, the soldiers came from Camp Lee near Wollbach. They were also equipped with night vision devices, which often triggered false alarms. The post once reported a large number of refugees, which then turned out to be a herd of deer!

The bunker was easy to see from the GDR side. The GDR border guards had special rules of conduct near the bunker. They had to be as covert as possible. Open conversations were forbidden because there were suspected listening devices in the base. Experts from the border police consider this unlikely, because most US soldiers were too poor at speaking German for that. The post's observations were passed on to the MI office on Martin Luther Street in Bad Neustadt. From there, the information was passed on to the border police inspection in Mellrichstadt. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the observation point was dismantled. 

Exiting the Grenzemuseum, I took a wrong turn and had to walk back... uphill... as my phone battery got lower and lower! I finally found the right path, the entrance to which was hidden by a fallen tree. Then I hurried along a dirt track downhill through the woods, missing another turning because I was trying to use my phone as little as possible. The road I was on looked like it would take me to the same place, but then it became littered with fallen trees and broken branches; rather than turn back, uphill, I scrambled down the bank to the road where I was supposed to be. From there it was only a short walk into Eußenhausen, and to Pension Euring, where I arrived with 10% battery charge to spare! 

The 87-year-old Frau Euring did not speak a word of English, but showed me to an excellent room, and invited me to help myself to a beer from the refrigerator in the breakfast room upstairs!

Meiningen - Eußenhausen 20.5 km