Along the wall and watchtowers - Oliver August

A revealing portrait of the reunified Germany told in the form of an entertaining travelogue -- an 800-mile journey along the former Iron Curtain from the Baltic Sea to the Czech border. * In recent German history, borders -- and their expansion -- have been central to the fate of Europe. When the Iron Curtain dissolved ten years ago, the faultline that divided West and East Germany also collapsed. But could the so-called 'anti-fascist protection barrier' (or 'death strip') be erased as easily as a pencil-mark on the map? Curious to find out, Oliver August set off on an 800-mile journey from the Baltic Sea to the Czech border. * In his encounters with former border guards, ex-Stasi members turned insurance salesmen, decollectivized farmers, innkeepers, nudists, car mechanics, engine-drivers, foresters, artists and dreamers, the author reveals with a delightful lightness of touch the hopes, fears and regrets of both 'Wessis' and 'Ossis', and listens to the anxieties of those who feel 'colonized' by the West.;* He travels along the Elbe, observing new nature reserves in the old borderlands; visits the unique village republic where for 22 years the inhabitants lived enclosed between two fences; watches the rebuilding of the Bismarck family castle; attends an international gathering of Trabant-owners; explores museums devoted to documenting former life along the border; travels across the dark and sinister Harz mountains which once harboured an underground Nazi concentration camp; and ends his journey in Hof, where minefields have been transformed into golf courses.