Steinstücken

From Freepedia

Steinstücken, a small settlement with approximately 200 inhabitants, is the southernmost territory of the Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf. During the division of Germany from 1949 until 1990, Steinstücken was the largest of a number of exclaves of West Berlin, itself a West German exclave, in East German (GDR) territory.

Background and history

Beginning in the 1950's, Steinstücken, which belonged to the American Sector of West Berlin, was cut off from the rest of Berlin by the surrounding East German territory, which was part of the district of Potsdam and under Soviet occupation. Following the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961, Steinstücken became the focus of several escape attempts; as a tiny enclave within East German territory it was only demarcated by barbed wire barriers. After more than twenty East German border guards escaped to the west through Steinstücken, the communist regime in East Germany specially built a wall around Steinstücken to cut off this escape route.

Throughout this time, Steinstücken was practically cut off from West Berlin. Residents had to pass through 1 km of East German territory, including two East German border checkpoints, simply to go shopping, go to school, or visit friends or relatives. The East German government often threatened to seize Steinstücken, and the US military posted three MP's there to defend its claim to the area.

To eliminate this threat and alleviate this enormous inconvinience to the residence of Steinstücken, a road connecting the settlement to Kohlhasenbrück in West Berlin was built in 1972. This required an exchange of territory between East Germany and West Berlin, which in turn required the approval of the four occupation powers: the Soviet Union, United States, United Kingdom, and France. Following meetings of the Allied Commission, the four powers signed the Four-Power-Agreement [1] on September 3, 1971, which lead to a tiny sliver of land connecting West Berlin to Steinstücken becoming part of West Berlin territory. The connecting road was then built on this sliver, allowing Steinstücken residents to cross unimpeded to West Berlin.

One part of the road, a bridge leading to Steinstücken, caused special problems because the tracks of the Deutsche Reichsbahn, the East German railway, passed under it. East Germany therefore refused to transfer this territory to West Berlin. A compromise was reached in which the bridge and the airspace above it became part of West Berlin, while the airspace and land below the bridge, including the tracks, remained in East German hands. The land transfer and building of the road ended Steinstücken's status as an exclave for all practical purposes, although the fact that the land under the bridge remained in GDR territory leaves the issue open to interpretation.

Following the construction of the road, the East Germans proceeded to extend the Berlin Wall around it. With the fall of the wall in 1989, the border fortifications were removed, but Steinstücken and the road remain part of Berlin today. A film revisiting life in Steinstücken aired on Berlin television in September 2005.

See also

• Allied Commission
• Berlin Wall
• East Germany
• History of Germany since 1945
• West Berlin
• Zehlendorf, Berlin

External links

• Berlin Exclaves
• Das Kleine Steinstücken und die große Politik (in German)
• History of the Western Allies in Berlin
• Berlin Television Program Die Insel vor der Insel (in German)