German Green Belt

The German Green Belt (Grünes Band Deutschland in German) is a project of Bund Naturschutz (BUND), one of Germany's largest environmental groups. The project began in 1989 facing the 870 mile (1400 km) network of inner German border fences and guard towers formerly separating East and West Germany. It is one of the world's most unusual nature reserves, lying along the old "Death Strip," turning a monument to repression into a symbol of renewal.

The Inner German Border was formally established on 1 July 1945 as the boundary between the Western and Soviet occupation zones of Germany. On the eastern side, it was made one of the world's most heavily fortified frontiers, defined by a continuous line of high metal fences and walls, barbed wire, alarms, anti vehicle ditches, watchtowers, automatic booby traps and minefields. It was patrolled by 50,000 armed GDR guards who faced tens of thousands of West German, British and US guards and soldiers. Despite the extensiveness of the Inner Border, it was the Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) that would serve as the famous and infamous representation of the "Iron Curtain" and the Cold War. The Berlin Wall was a barrier that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989, constructed by the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin until it was opened in November 1989. In practice, the Wall served to prevent the massive emigration and defection that marked East Germany and the communist Eastern Bloc during the post World War II period. From the outset, West Germany and the Allies rejected East Germany's legitimacy. The "West" saw the creation of the GDR as an extension of the Soviet Union and an illegitimate heir to German history and culture following World War II. The East German government sought to define the country as a legitimate state in its own right and portrayed West Germany as enemy territory (feindliches Ausland) – a capitalist, semi fascist state that exploited its citizens, sought to regain the lost territories of the Third Reich, and stood opposed to the peaceful socialism of the GDR.

The GDR side of the Inner German Border had by far a more complex system of fortifications and border controls than the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). long and between 50 and 200 kilometers deep, the German portion ran from the Baltic Sea to Czechoslovakia with the entire "Iron Curtain" extending from the Arctic to the Black Sea. The border fortifications were indeed formidable with visible electrified fences with barbed wire, guard towers, heavily armed guards, and mine fields. The first area which one would have encountered along the border, traveling from east to west, would have been the "restrictive zone" (Sperrzone). This section was a wide area running parallel to the border to which access was heavily restricted with permits and checkpoints. On the far side of this zone was the signal fence (Signalzaun), a continuous expanded metal fence long and high. It was lined with low voltage electrified strands of barbed wire and when the wire was touched or cut, an alarm was activated to alert nearby guards. Behind this fencing came the heavily guarded "protective strip" (Schutzstreifen). This area, that ran adjacent to the actual GDR border, was monitored by guards in large watchtowers constructed at regular intervals along the entire length of the border with almost 700 towers built by 1989. These towers made it possible for East German guards to fire upon anyone attempting an escape. With all of these deadly defensive measures in place, it came as no surprise that this "death strip" of land was referred to as "no man's land." It would be fitting that the former "no mans land" would become the future "Green Belt." From a nature conservation standpoint, the Iron Curtain was a blessing, a vast strip of land in which wildlife thrived. Freed for 40 years from disturbance, as e. g. hunting and farming, wild animals and plants prospered.

For four decades the "Iron Curtain" formed an almost insurmountable physical and ideological border in Europe. Soon political change would be instigated in 1989, when on 19 August the "Pan European Picnic" took place on the Hungarian Austrian border, close to the town of Sopron. This crucial moment marked the beginning of the end of the GDR and the dismantling of its extensive border. Due to the strong commitment of nature conservationists, the border between East and West Germany became Europe's biggest nature reserve: an 870 mile "ecological treasure trove." It is no longer the Iron Curtain but the Green Belt, and home to more than 1200 rare and endangered species of birds, mammals, plants and insects. The history of the Green Belt does not just begin with the fall of the Berlin Wall but earlier with the beginning interest of young bird specialists of the BUND in the border region between Bavaria and Thuringia. The creation of the Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND), part of the larger organization Friends of the Earth was created on July 20, 1975, BUND by Horst Stern, Prof. Bernhard Grzimek, Dr. Herbert Gruhl, Enoch zu Guttenberg, Hubert Weinzierl, Hubert Weiger and 16 other environmentalist. From the Western side of the border, the BUND was able to see different bird species, among other animals, thriving in such a hostile environment. In this way nature conservationists from the Bavarian branch of the BUND have been charting the natural features of the border corridor from the Western side since 1975, verifying the great diversity of species and habitats of the former death zone. In order to prove the value of the land, the BUND and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) worked in collaboration and began a painstaking inventory of the ecosystems and species along the Green Belt.

The state of Thuringia requires infrastructure projects like overground and underground cables, federal and state roads, and railways to obtain environmental and monument protection permission to cross the Green Belt. This has hampered the development of de, a high voltage cable intended to transport renewable electricity across German states from the north to the south. The environmental speaker of the German Farmers' Association argued in 2013 that the Green Belt risked becoming a 'Green Border' if additional nature reserves along it impeded farming. He said that other than nature conservation, a return to farming and forestry on the Belt could also be seen as a symbol for German reunification. In 2019, some members of the public in the state of Saxony Anhalt similarly described the belt as a new form of dividing Germany's East and West.