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On Friday 24. April 2020 I travelled with a fellow border enthusiast, Hans Peter Nissen, along the Danish-German border visiting all crossings from west to east. The border has very general characteristics diving bodies of water, farmland, forests, roads and even a village. It was settled exactly 100 years ago following the Versailles treaty and the course generally follows the national loyalty of the people after a plebiscite. It's an internal Schengen border, which has been very open until recently where the Danish government choose to have some sort of border control or spot-checks at some of the crossings due to terror threat and the migration crisis. In 2019 Denmark also raised a controversial wildeboer fence along most of the border. Yet the border remained still very porous with lots of small crossings completely open. The wildeboer fence has gates too allowing for human traffic.


With the coronavirus the border was first closed by Denmark and few days later by Germany. Now only three mayor crossing points are operating. Permitted crossing is for goods and humans with an honorable cause.

The border is now quite sealed and even crossing by foot would require some efforts.

At two crossing points we met locals interacting across the border. It were family members having a relaxed time drinking beers together, and other exchange of things.

We also spoke to a resident at the divided village. She is residing in the last Danish house with border markers on three the sides of the house. The original occupant fought very hard to belong to Denmark. He convinced the border commission and this one of the reasons this village is divided and is also a tourist attraction today. The locals like to advertise this as the strangest border in the world, but we know better. The lady has a problem as Denmark closed the border at the entrance to the village, leaving her unable to leave the property without climbing the road block or trespassing neighbors’ property. She has to park her car outside the road block, where also mail and garbage needs to be exchanged. Luckily its all friendly people with pragmatic attitude.

A few other places Danish farms only have access to their property or farmland through German soil. Here the road blocks have been equipped with padlocks allowing access with permission. Here mail is also delivered at a temporary mailbox at the road block.

We also witnessed the operations at the open crossings and had a chance to try it for ourselves. The fast track for lorries was very fast and was let through without any interaction with guards. We witnessed no rejections. The operations were very relaxed and our presence was hardly noticed.  

We noted that most crossings that only allows for bikes or walking appeared to be sealed from the German side, so it looks like Denmark forgot those initially. I would say the Germans did a much poorer job than Danes.