Zwischenfälle im Reichsland: Überschreiten, Polizieren, Nationalisieren der deutsch-französischen Grenze (1887–1914)

Abstract

The imperial government’s establishment of a border police station in Altmünsterol (Montreux-Vieux), Alsace, on 1 April 1888, marked a milestone in the history of German policing, official and public understandings of national boundaries, and Franco-German relations. The emergence of the border between France and Germany as a material, visible and experienceable phenomenon from 1887 to 1914 is the subject of Sarah Frenking’s monograph, Zwischenfälle im Reichsland. The Reichsland encompassed the territory of Alsace and Lorraine annexed by Germany following the Franco-Prussian War. Unlike other German states, the emperor directly ruled the region. As Frenking adroitly shows through the case of border security, the region’s unique administration and geographic position encouraged its use as a laboratory for programmes later adopted in other parts of the Kaiserreich. Drawing from border- and nation-building studies, Henri Lefebvre’s work, and extensive archival sources, she demonstrates that physical borders and their perception are the product of a complex interplay of actors, discourses, routines, symbolisms, experiences and material objects. The Franco-German border never existed in an ‘open’ or ‘closed’ dichotomy. Instead, its permeability depended on the border crosser’s official classification. Locals and well-documented travellers might experience the national frontier as a minor annoyance or event to mention in a postcard back home, but it was a potentially insurmountable obstacle to ‘undesirable’ individuals, such as suspected spies, foreign soldiers and the itinerant troupes that border authorities referred to collectively as Zigeunerbanden (bands of gypsies). As a result, there was no universal passage experience nor a single form of agency. By focusing her analysis on the Altmünsterol border police station, Frenking aims to illuminate the multifaceted, evolving, transnational and non-linear process through which borders are made, territory is nationalized, public perception is shaped, and the resultant experiences engendered on the ground (pp. 11, 29, 32, 34, 394).