30 Years After Reunification, Old German-German Border Is a Green Oasis

MITWITZ, Germany — Two men, one riding a bicycle, the other wearing binoculars, met in a field in the middle of Germany on a recent afternoon. Both 61, they started arguing politely, the way strangers do, about where exactly the border between East and West Germany had been. Soon, it became clear that both had good reason to think they were right.

One used to be an East German border guard; the other grew up just west of the border and started bird-watching in the area at 13.

“You might have seen me here with my big binoculars,” said Kai Frobel, the onetime birder, thinking back more than three decades.

“There were quite a few of those here then,” laughed Mario Wenzel, the former guard, before predicting that all too soon nobody would remember the reality of a border within Germany.

While the militarized border that split Germany for 38 years has disappeared more readily than the persistent economic and political differences between the two parts, a faint 870 mile-long scar remains.

It is green.