Jason Johnson on States of Division: Border and Boundary

Sagi Schaefer. States of Division: Border and Boundary Formation in Cold War Rural Germany. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 288 pp. $99.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-967238-7. Reviewed by Jason Johnson Published on H-German (December, 2016) Commissioned by Jeremy DeWaal Sagi Schaefer’s book centers on the Cold War the creation of the Iron Curtain. Schaefer now inner-German border through the Eichsfeld re‐ brings a focus on the rural. gion, a rural Catholic enclave in central Germany. Schaefer’s fve chapters thus “foreground the His work continues the important historiographi‐ rural character of the borderlands …. roughly re‐ cal thread of moving beyond Berlin to investigate flecting the experience of farmers” (p. 11). The events and processes of German division that first chapter focuses on the early years of division have been, as Schaefer has written elsewhere, —1945-52—as occupation zonal frontiers crystal‐ “hidden behind the Wall.”[1] Scholarly analysis of lized into the 1949 border between the Federal Re‐ the rural border dividing Germany, stretching public and the German Democratic Republic more than eight hundred miles, has until recent (GDR). Schaefer persuasively illustrates that in the years been largely overshadowed by the division Eichsfeld, “Western economic reconstruction was of Berlin. the most powerful motor of division in those Anthropologist Daphne Berdahl’s pioneering years” (pp. 15-16). Chapter 2 then turns to the wa‐ work Where the World Ended (1999) on the thou‐ tershed year 1952 when the GDR removed thou‐ sand-person East German border community Kel‐ sands from its borderland and began to seal its la helped spark more scholarly interest in the frontier. Schaefer cleverly focuses on land use frontier. Edith Sheffer’s brilliant Bridge Bridge: and property ownership across the following How East and West Germans Made the Iron Cur‐ year, exhibiting that frontier farmers “acted in tain (2011) looked at the adjacent cross-border their own interests, attempting to harness policies towns of Sonneberg in Thuringia and Neustadt designed in Bonn and East Berlin to locally rele‐ bei Coburg in Bavaria, convincingly demonstrat‐ vant ends” (p. 61). The third chapter eloquently ing in particular the importance of local agency in shows that across the following years of the 1950s, the Federal Republic’s claim of exclusive H-Net Reviews representation of the German nation and its re‐ ment to respect GDR sovereignty along the bor‐ fusal to recognize the GDR paradoxically “contrib‐ der, enabled East German state agencies to extend uted to buttressing and enhancing the process of border fortifications systematically and to guard division”: as options for cross-border cooperation the border more effectively than ever before” (p. waned, frontier farmers and administrators 177). “were forced to adopt solution and practices…[of] Overall, Schaefer skilfully demonstrates “the ‘their own,’ that is, their separate states,” leading protracted process of border formation and the to increasing distance between those on each side division of Germany” (p. 23) and that “in this of the border (p. 92). process, East and West Germany, indeed The East Schaefer’s fourth section traces struggles be‐ and The West, were produced and reproduced in tween frontier farmers and administrators on the German borderlands” (p. 2). His detailed anal‐ both sides of the border during the 1950s: in the ysis adeptly showcases the often unexpected— East, such confrontations were over the state-led sometimes even counterintuitive—effects of state agricultural collectivization drive which ended in policy at the physical margins. At the larger level, forced collectivization in 1960 while in the West Schaefer’s work usefully and persuasively creates they centered on farmers’ claims for compensa‐ “a new balance in the question of agency” along tion for land lost in the GDR due to the sealing of the Iron Curtain: “local agency was important in the border. Schaefer shows that during these shaping life along the border and meanings at‐ years—which he insightfully categorizes as “a tached to the border over time, but only within decade of conflict”—“frontier farmers learned to the limits imposed by state organizations” (p. 7). orient themselves toward the legal and institu‐ Though clearer signposting would have at times tional frameworks created by state organizations” been helpful for the reader, Schaefer’s work is a (p. 119). This then helped cement division. Schae‐ rigorous, well-conceived, thoughtful, and convinc‐ fer describes the following time frame of 1961-70 ing historical analysis based on impressive exten‐ as “a decade of compromise” as farmers and state sive archival work done at eighteen repositories. agencies on both sides of the border developed This book will be especially useful for scholars of such arrangements, ones made possible in partic‐ postwar German history, the Cold War, or border ular due to “economic stabilization and grown on studies. both sides of the border; the diminishing role of Schaefer’s excellent study is a sign of the in‐ agriculture; and an at least de facto acceptance of creasing scholarly attention to the Iron Curtain. the fnality of the border” (p. 119). States of Divi‐ Indeed, more recently Yuliya Komska expanded sion’s fnal chapter focuses on the December 1972 the geographic scope with a superb investigation Grundvertrag or Basic Treaty, which brought mu‐ of the Cold War frontier between Bohemia and tual recognition between the two German states, Bavaria in her The Icon Curtain: The Cold War's and the effects of West German chancellor Willy Quiet Border (2015). Hopefully scholars will con‐ Brandt’s larger policy of Ostpolitik to normalize tinue to move beyond divided Berlin to give us an relations with the GDR. Schaefer illustrates that even more comprehensive knowledge of the Iron “Brandt’s strategy worked in unexpected ways to Curtain across Europe. In a contemporary climate solidify the border in the short term and to under‐ laden with talk of fences and walls, reminders of mine it in the long” (p. 158). In particular, the au‐ the consequences of divisions past are all the thor’s fndings on the consequences of the Basic more needed. Treaty in regard to GDR border fortification in the Note 1970s are striking: he shows that “international recognition, and especially West German commit‐ 2 H-Net Reviews [1]. Sagi Schaefer, “Hidden Behind the Wall: West German State Building and the Emergence of the Iron Curtain,” Central European History 44 (2011): 506-535. If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-german Citation: Jason Johnson. Review of Schaefer, Sagi. States of Division: Border and Boundary Formation in Cold War Rural Germany. H-German, H-Net Reviews. December, 2016. URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=46344 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 3.

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