Binding the Nation, Bounding the State: Germany and its Borders

Abstract

The borders of Germany and of Europe have come under increased academic scrutiny over the last few years as questions of mobility and migration have surged to the forefront of public interest. Most such studies remain embedded in regional historiographies, although they are increasingly informed by interdisciplinary methodological and theoretical developments. Historians of the nineteeth- and twentieth-century French-German border emphasize transnational overlaps that arguably prefigured European cooperation, whereas studies of the Polish-German border stress the indifference and resentment generated by nationalism well into the twentieth century. Histories of divided Germany during the Cold War have transnationalized interpretations of everyday life in the GDR and the FRG, while studies of Europe since 1990 have probed the meanings and anxieties connected with Schengen. Taken together, these works show how interconnected discourses of ‘Europe’ have come together from experiences with borders that have varied greatly across time and space.