Hiking Germany’s Green Belt – Along the former border

From death strip to lifeline – could there be a better way to  transform Germany’s former inner border? How did it become the Green Belt (Grünes Band), where today you can literally walk German history? For over 40 years, the former East/West German border strip formed part of the ‘Iron Curtain’ which divided the democratic states of the West from the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe.

Nowhere was this line of division more heavily fortified than in Germany, where the GDR border was a physical manifestation of the ideological and physical division of people – with patrol tracks, control strips, anti-vehicle ditches, minefields, high metal fences and of course the infamous wall itself. Access to the near 1,400 km long and 500 m wide borderlands was exclusively for border troops, and so nature in the area was largely left to its own devices. As a result, a range of ecospheres developed and prospered: meadow and heathlands, rivers and lakes, wetlands and forests. The borderlands became a sanctuary for over 1,200 threatened species of plants and animals.

Following the reunification of Germany, the border infrastructure was demolished, and, in its place, ‘Germany’s Green Belt’ was established. To mark its 30th anniversary in 2020, this unique nature conservation project was given the title of “National Natural Monument”, to highlight its all-encompassing conservation status.

Hiking the Green Belt takes you through an amazing range of natural habitats. From Vogtland, which spans the states of Bavaria and Thuringia in Germany, and north-western Bohemia in the Czech Republic, to the mountain ranges of the Franconian Forest and along the well-known Rennsteig ridge trail down to the Rhone Valley with its open rolling hills.

Along the river Werra further north, it cuts through the Harz Mountains, with their ancient woodlands, and then traverses the North Germany’s highest mountain, the ‘Brocken’. Further north, the River Elbe characterises the landscape, until your hiking boots finally touch down in the white sands of the Baltic Coast.

The route itself is reason enough to set out, but there were also  a few other reasons for me to hike the Green Belt. My life story is closely intertwined with the separation and reunification of Germany. My father fled East Germany to West Berlin. I only met my grandfather, who lived in East Germany, once in my life. It was 1979, and I was eleven years old, when we travelled into the ‘Bloc’. A few months later, images spread around the world of two families who had spectacularly escaped in a homemade hot air balloon. With the navy, I crossed the Warsaw Pact maritime border on board a submarine and spent the night in a harbour bar on the island of Rügen together with GDR soldiers.

It’s time. I take the first step. The first of more than 100,000 on this journey along the length of the Green Belt, all the way to the Baltic Sea. Some 1,400 kilometres lie ahead. At first, there are no signs of the actual patrol trail with its characteristic concrete slabs. But they’ll turn up soon enough. Tough and agonisingly long sections of them.

But right now, I’m on trails running through fields and meadows that take me through an open landscape. What is noticeable however, are the kilometre-long anti-vehicle ditches, designed to prevent civilians escaping in ordinary vehicles.

It’s just gone 7 am and it’s a rather crisp September morningin the far north-eastern reaches of Bavaria. We’re standing (I’m joined for some of the trail by filmmaker Philippe Opigez) on the banks of the River Regnitz, which winds its way through shaded woods at the intersection between Saxony, Bavaria and the Czech Republic.

As more and more rays of sunlight make their way through the dense green of the woods, creating a beautiful atmosphere, my spirits are raised. But it’s not just the late summer weather that spurs me on, I’m keen to get going. To finally put the weeks and weeks of planning behind me and enjoy the thrill of setting out.