Part of the border between former East and West Germany may be declared a no-go zone as dozens of minefields have remained uncleared since the Cold War, the Focus magazine reported on Saturday, quoting the federal land of Thuringia’s Ecology Minister Jurgen Reinholz.
More than 40 minefields stretch for some 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) along the borders of Thuringia, once part of the Soviet-controlled German Democratic Republic bordering the Federal Republic of Germany.
The German authorities acknowledge the need to demine the area, but this would be a costly enterprise, the report said.
“If nothing changes, we will declare the area a no-go zone,” Reinholz was quoted as saying in an interview with the local newspaper OVZ.
A total of 1.2 million mines were laid by the East German authorities at the border with West Germany during the Cold War, including half of them along Thuringia’s modern borders, according to local ecology authorities. More than 30,000 mines still remain in the ground, the newspaper said.
Between 100,000 and 200,000 people attempted to flee East Germany for the Federal Republic of Germany across the Berlin Wall in the period from 1961, when the Wall was erected, to 1989, when it came down, paving the way for Germany’s reunification. Some 5,000 are believed to have succeeded, while dozens were killed trying to cross the Wall.
