Reclaiming the Border as Centre? German-Polish ‘Twin’ Towns Maximilian Sternberg
Conflict in Cities: Europe and the Middle East
At the end of World War Two, at the conferences of Yalta and Potsdam in 1945, the Allies unilaterally decided upon the future borders of Poland and Germany. Poland was shifted by approximately two hundred kilometres westward. The new border was defined by the Oder and Neisse rivers. Poland thereby gained territories belonging to Germany prior to 1937, in compensation for Polish areas annexed by the Soviet Union. These shifts resulted in massive forced population exchanges. An incidental consequence of this seismic shift was the division of a series of German towns that had previously stretched across the rivers that now constituted the new ‘Oder-Neisse’ border. Urban areas east of the border were re-founded as Polish municipalities, leading, amongst other smaller affected settlements, to the ‘twin towns’ of Frankfurt (Oder)-Słubice, Guben-Gubin and GörlitzZgorzelec. All German inhabitants of the eastern neighbourhoods were expelled, while Polish citizens, displaced from the eastern territories, were ‘repatriated’ in the vacant ‘half’ towns east of the rivers. In recent years, the fall of socialism and the eastward expansions of NATO and the EU have propelled these towns from the margins to the heart of a reconstituted Europe. Despite their modest populations, the towns have major symbolic value in Germany and Poland’s attempts to write a new, hopeful chapter in a modern history marked by war, trauma and deep resentments. Can the border towns become genuine twin towns and in an era of greater ‘ordinariness’, lead the way as exemplars of a new multiculturalism? This essay looks at current transformations of public space in the inner urban areas along the river banks tracing how the border towns are searching for new potential centres. The photos date from a visit undertaken in July 2011.
Frankfurt- Słubice is the northernmost of the border towns, a mere 100 kilometres from Berlin. Looking towards the German side from the Polish border, just south of central Słubice, the landscape between the two towns is dominated by the width of the Oder and its green river banks. Like the other German border towns, as well as many medium-sized urban centres in East Germany, Frankfurt was hit hard by the socio-economic upheavals of the unification in 1990. Many residents today feel they live in a ‘dying city’, their population having shrunk from 86,000 in 1990 to 60,000 in 2010. This testifies to the industrial collapse of already morose East German manufacturers that lost both their markets and competitiveness overnight in 1990, leading to mass unemployment and outward migration. Meanwhile the population of Słubice, once a nineteenth-century suburb of pre-war Frankfurt, has grown from 16,000 to 19,000. Nevertheless, massive German public investment and welfare provision have ensured a significant economic differential in favour of Frankfurt. Poland’s western borderlands remain weak by the standard of Poland’s steadily improving national economy. Official policies of increased cross-border cooperation at regional, national and EU-levels, since the bilateral German-Polish ‘Treaty of Good Neighbourship of 1991’ have so far remained disconnected from local communities on the border towns with little social and cultural interaction having materialised at the level of everyday life.
The large ‘City-bridge’ viewed from Frankfurt’s recently regenerated river promenade, links the towns together but also marks the distance that continues to separate their populations, both physically and mentally. Destroyed by the retreating German forces in 1945, the bridge was rebuilt in 1952. In this period the border between the socialist Warsaw Pact allies of the GDR and the People’s Republic of Poland was characterised hard division. Despite a détente in the 1970s with increased interactions, the border again closed in the 1980s and both towns lived in the shadow of preeminent and excluding state borders. Refurbished once more in 2002, the bridge has witnessed an exponential growth in vehicular and pedestrian traffic since Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004. Yet it was only in 2008 that Poland joined the Schengen Agreement, bringing with it, the lifting of border control checks and possibilities of overcoming the character of the towns as constituting a marginalised frontier.
Crossing over into the Polish side, the main street by the bridge now essentially makes up the Polish town centre. It continues to be marked by a colourful border commerce specialising particularly in tobacco, alcohol and petrol (sold in nearby stations) still significantly cheaper here than on the other side. Balconies supported by temporary scaffolding, a myriad of shops and public flower beds along the street, speak of the particular mix of entrepreneurship, humble average incomes and limited municipal resources that characterises SĹ‚ubice. While funds have been earmarked for regenerating the border towns that are eligible also for special EU transnational regional subsidies, the centralised nature of the Polish state has slowed the pace of investment. German federal regionalism and superior financial resources have meant that the regeneration of the German centre and riverside has largely been completed.
On the German side of the bridge, the old border terminal still stands, making Słubice yet further removed. It reminds visitors that the river is still a state border conveying a sense of a thoroughfare rather than a new centre. Although no longer serving any purpose since the suspension of passport controls in 2008, no alternative function has been found for the clumsy canopy. The fact that is has simply not been dismantled, as in many other parts of the border, indicates that Frankfurt hesitates to reciprocate the new orientation to the neighbour in evidence in Słubice. Sustained dialogue and social relationships on the whole remain restricted to the university milieu of Frankfurt’s Viadrina University and the Collegium Polonicum in Słubice. Students are also among the few enthusiasts of ‘Słubfurt’, a project brought to life by a German artist and native of Frankfurt. Through various initiatives, Słubfurt attempts to create a new transnational identity. In a r e c e n t r e f e r e n d u m , h o w e v e r, F r a n k f u r t e r s overwhelmingly rejected the proposal to reinstate the tramway across the City-bridge that used to connect the two sides before the War.
A recent survey has revealed that two thirds of German border crossings are still motivated by bargain-hunting at Słubice’s bazaars. Here we see the more central market located near the bridge; a larger one is currently being refurbished further south. The bazaar economy peaked in the 1990s (then accounting for 40 percent of municipal revenues) but it survives by adapting to changing German consumer demands. The most popular goods are foodstuffs and other local produce, which Germans view as more organic, much of their own shopping possibilities being dominated by large discount supermarkets. Polish consumers too are going over to the other side in growing numbers, particularly for electrical goods that are now cheaper there, even though German retailers have not done much to respond to this new market. Signs and advertisements in Polish are nowhere to be seen in German shops. The linguistic barrier remains a hard one, with many more Polish willing to learn German than vice versa. Right-wing extremism in Frankfurt has ebbed since the 1990s but remains elevated by national, though not East German standards.
Leaving Frankfurt heading southward, the border eventually follows the path of the Neisse, a small sidearm of the Oder. Fifty kilometres from Frankfurt, one reaches Guben-Gubin, the smallest of the three border towns. Looking over to the German side, with the main bridge linking the two towns on the right, the effects of Schengen are clearly visible. The old border terminal that used to overshadow German Guben’s centre has disappeared, and the upgraded river bank again serves its traditional leisure function. Unlike Frankfurt and Görlitz, the core of the pre-war city was on the eastern side. Devastated in the War, the Polish municipality never had the means to reconstruct it, and even today much of Gubin’s central areas are characterised by empty lots and green spaces. Guben’s population has declined to the point of reaching near parity with the Polish side; together the towns number 36,000 inhabitants, 10,000 less than in the late 1930s. Small and with little expectation of industrial recovery, both Guben and Gubin seem increasingly aware that the only viable future is one in which they face common challenges together, despite the weight of history and cultural differences. Since Schengen, regional and EU investment in the central riversides since the 1990s appears to be slowly bearing fruit, finding more positive resonance with locals, rather than only with the always eager municipal officials.
A dilapidated neo-classical villa by the central riverbank on the German side speaks of Guben’s former wealth and industrial glory. While its manufacturing sectors did develop in different ways under the GDR, this heritage now seems irrecoverably lost. On the Polish side, overlooking the centre, once stood Mies van der Rohe’s first modernist design, the famous Villa Wolf. Damaged during the war and subsequently removed, the vacant elevated site today serves as a viewing platform and was used for cultural events co-organised by the German ‘Internationale Bauaustellung’ that was active in a whole range of regional border projects in 2000-2010. In the absence of significant historic fabric, Guben and Gubin attempt to make the most of its border landscape to recover a sense of centre.
The key element of this landscape is the picturesque ‘Theatre-island’, here viewed from the town’s main bridge. The elegant turn of the century theatre was destroyed in the War; the island was designated as Polish territory under the new border regime. During the Cold War the island served as a buffer zone, becoming a deserted no-man’s land. In the 1990s, Polish Gubin built a footbridge to provide renewed access to an area now designated as a culture and leisure park under bi-communal plans. Punctually for the lifting of passport controls in 2008, Guben reciprocated by inaugurating a new suspension bridge, making direct access to the island from the German side possible again. Despite petty squabbles over maintenance costs for the bridge, the island today seems accepted as a significant shared space. Gubin has rebuilt three arcades from the former facade of the theatre and has reinstated a monument to a local actress, reputedly one of Goethe’s girlfriends. Given that any reference to the German heritage of Guben was once taboo in the official Polish discourse (which claimed the new territories and their towns as authentic Polish ‘ur-land’), this is no mean gesture.
From 1990 up to 2004, the Oder-Neisse border was the external border of the EU, and various forms of trafficking and clandestine migration were a key feature of everyday life in the border towns. With the coming of Schengen, and in 2011 the lifting of work restrictions for Polish nationals in Germany, this supranational border has now definitively moved to Poland’s eastern border, and may one day shift further east. Yet, smuggling is still in evidence here and there, as heightened police patrols and checks indicate (much of it coordinated by Polish and German officers). Here we see Polish soldiers investigating a suspicious vessel near the central bridge.
Like in Frankfurt, mutual cross-border shopping constitutes the primary reason for interacting with the other side in Guben-Gubin. However, a recent bi-communal citizens’ initiative has shown that connections are beginning to transcend the realm of ‘mere’ economic opportunism. The abandoned, war-damaged main church of Guben, long standing as an open wound in the city, clearly visible from the centres of both towns, is being refurbished. The bell-tower will be reconstructed to its per-war state and an architectural competition for the roofless nave will be announced in 2012. The brief is to create a German-Polish ‘place of encounter’. Interestingly, on the German side, the driving energy for this project has come from natives of Guben, who have left and now returned to their hometown, bringing with them a new type of ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’. Meanwhile Polish Gubiners are increasingly cultivating international connections of their own, yet, unsurprisingly looking more to the United Stated, than their old ‘imperial aggressors’ across the river.
Continuing south along the Neisse one reaches Görlitz-Zgorzelec, moderately more populous than Frankfurt. From the newly laid out promenade of Zgorzelec one sees the picturesque townscape and towering Gothic cathedral of Görlitz across the river. Unlike Frankfurt and Guben, Görlitz was miraculously sparred the stubborn and pointless street fighting of the Nazi retreat, leaving its pre-War built fabric essentially intact. While Görlitz has suffered from socio-economic stagnation and demographic decline on a scale comparable to that of its northern counterparts, the now fully restored city centre is a source of great civic pride on the German side. Görlitz can rightly claim to be one of the best-preserved historic cities of East Germany. The sign ‘Bulvar Grecki’ in the foreground of the Polish promenade is a testimony of the vagaries of history. In 1950, 15,000 Greek Communists, made refugees after their defeat in the Civil War of 1948-49 were relocated to Zgorzelec. At that point they made up half the population of the Polish town. Most Greeks have since returned home, but about seventy Polish-Greek families have stayed on and settled permanently in Zgorzelec.
In 2004, the EU and the Land of Sachsen opened a new footbridge where the ‘Old city bridge’ stood before the War. Just like in Guben, the modest size of the Neisse allows the bridge to convey a new sense of centrality. Apart from a German sign, a flag and border poles on both sides, the status of the bridge as a state border has given way to a sense of an ordinary river crossing in the centre of a pleasant, provincial town. Daily crossings not only for the purposes of shopping, but also for leisure and culture, speak of the attractiveness of Görlitz for residents of Zgorzelec. Germans too enjoy the new Polish promenade with its growing offer of cafés and restaurants.
On Zgorzelec’s side of the bridge, the Polish municipality, in conjunction with its German counterpart, is reconstructing the square and enclosing a row of houses that used to stand there before the war. The design follows the historic precedent closely. On one level, this project attempts to extend the historic character of Görlitz into Zgorzelec, starting from the former border and working its way inwards. On another level, the reconstruction project, reminiscent on a smaller scale of Polish policies in Warsaw or Wrocław after the War, marks a real break with previous Polish refusals to acknowledge the German history of the western territories they received after 1945.
At a stone’s throw from the advanced construction site, the dilapidated facades along the promenade testify to the modest economic standing of many of Zgorzelec’s residents. Many say they feel like they live in the ‘ugly little wing’, as Görlitz, following a vast process of refurbishment, shines in its former glory, even if only physically. 2010 was the first year that saw a modest growth in the population of Görlitz after years of decline. The new residents are mainly pensioners, attracted by the comfort and beauty of the historic centre. Yet this is not itself a new phenomenon. In 1900, Görlitz was already known as ‘pensionopolis’.
The rundown buildings by Zgorzelec’s river promenade face the tidied up facades of GÜrlitz. On a daily basis since the border was opened, both towns have felt the economic asymmetries that underpin this contrast. As the physical transformation of public space in Zgorzelec progresses and with the economic gap being set to narrow, such contrasts will be less stark in coming years. Whether the towns will consider removing their border poles in physical and symbolic terms in order to create a new common ground remains an open question, however. Especially the older and middle generations seem set in their ways. Germans do not see their neighbour on a par; many Polish citizens still feel they need a firm state border in order to protect them from the expansionist tendencies of their former archenemy.
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