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Phantom Border: A Personal Reconnaissance of Contemporary Germany
280 pages, Paperback
Published November 12, 2024
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About the author
Kerstin Lange
1 book1 followerKerstin Lange is a freelance writer and journalist based in Vermont. She holds an M.A. in anthropology and an M.S. in ecology. Lange has worked with biological anthropologists among the nomadic Turkana in northwest Kenya and bicycled Germany’s 900-mile-long Green Belt. Her book Phantom Border: A Personal Reconnaissance of Contemporary Germany (Ibidem Press/Columbia University Press, 2024) examines the societal and ecological echoes of her home country’s Cold War division.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 27, 2025
Review by Kimberly Hagen Phantom Border
by Kerstin Lange
I wish everyone could read this book. If ever there was a “ book of the times” this is indeed it. If you find yourself upon waking up each day to the dire news and asking - “ What is going on? How can this be happening?I just don’t understand.” This might be the read for you.
Lange, originally from Germany, has spent the last 40 plus years living in Vermont. She is a writer and journalist, in addition to multiple accessory professions such as anthropological researcher, and ranger/naturalist on Vermont’s Long Trail.
What stands out most with this book is that in her attempt to understand some of the tumultuous changes in the 21 Century, in particular, the increasing popularity of the extreme right-wing party AfD (Alternative for Deutchland), in the former east Germany that 36 years ago saw a surge of 70,000 people cross the militarized border declaring it null and void, and demanding freedom from the Stasi, - aka East German secret police - on their lives. What, she wonders, has changed so that they would support this type of regime now?
The former border land between what was east and west Germany, a no man’s land, is currently a designated nature preserve, “Grunes Band” or Green Belt in English. A refuge for numerous rare plants and animals during the four decades of the cold war, it was decided shortly after the border opening to keep it protected and as a landscape of remembrance. Lange explains that for this reason it presents itself as the perfect path for her pilgrimage to explore her questions.
The magic of this pilgrimage, and this book, is the conversations she has with the people of this region. Some are formal interviews with town officials and former border guards, and some are casual conversations with people she meets on her travels. People that lived on both sides of this former border, and most of them have plenty to say.
I am struck by the courage it took to have these conversations. Many were not easy. Her forthrightness, and open curiosity towards all of her subjects and the topic is admirable. She is often surprised by what she hears, and many readers will also be surprised. The book reads like the investigation of a mystery, bits of information pieced together to find the source of today’s outcome. Set against the backdrop of the Greenbelt, and the gift it gives of pleasurable experiences with the smells, sounds and sights of nature, including the joy of finding rare plants, animals, insects and birds that ease one’s soul of the distress at some of the human interactions, and their history, makes this book indeed, a very rich experience.
by Kerstin Lange
I wish everyone could read this book. If ever there was a “ book of the times” this is indeed it. If you find yourself upon waking up each day to the dire news and asking - “ What is going on? How can this be happening?I just don’t understand.” This might be the read for you.
Lange, originally from Germany, has spent the last 40 plus years living in Vermont. She is a writer and journalist, in addition to multiple accessory professions such as anthropological researcher, and ranger/naturalist on Vermont’s Long Trail.
What stands out most with this book is that in her attempt to understand some of the tumultuous changes in the 21 Century, in particular, the increasing popularity of the extreme right-wing party AfD (Alternative for Deutchland), in the former east Germany that 36 years ago saw a surge of 70,000 people cross the militarized border declaring it null and void, and demanding freedom from the Stasi, - aka East German secret police - on their lives. What, she wonders, has changed so that they would support this type of regime now?
The former border land between what was east and west Germany, a no man’s land, is currently a designated nature preserve, “Grunes Band” or Green Belt in English. A refuge for numerous rare plants and animals during the four decades of the cold war, it was decided shortly after the border opening to keep it protected and as a landscape of remembrance. Lange explains that for this reason it presents itself as the perfect path for her pilgrimage to explore her questions.
The magic of this pilgrimage, and this book, is the conversations she has with the people of this region. Some are formal interviews with town officials and former border guards, and some are casual conversations with people she meets on her travels. People that lived on both sides of this former border, and most of them have plenty to say.
I am struck by the courage it took to have these conversations. Many were not easy. Her forthrightness, and open curiosity towards all of her subjects and the topic is admirable. She is often surprised by what she hears, and many readers will also be surprised. The book reads like the investigation of a mystery, bits of information pieced together to find the source of today’s outcome. Set against the backdrop of the Greenbelt, and the gift it gives of pleasurable experiences with the smells, sounds and sights of nature, including the joy of finding rare plants, animals, insects and birds that ease one’s soul of the distress at some of the human interactions, and their history, makes this book indeed, a very rich experience.
August 26, 2025
Having been raised in Germany and having lived in the USA for more than 30 years now, Kerstin Lange is uniquely qualified to write a book that addresses questions of migration, identity, and belonging--all highly-relevant topics for everyone in today's world. In addition to drawing from her own rich life experiences, work, and studies in Germany, Vermont, and Kenya, Kerstin has woven her deep knowledge and profound insights gained from Anthropology and Natural History/Ecology into this fascinating exploration of how the former highly militarized German borderland has gradually been transformed into the "Green Belt" where rare plant and animal species are now thriving. In making this amazing journey by bicycle and on foot, she has reached out to so many people along the way and shared their voices and perspectives on how the events, history, culture, ecology, landscape and humanity have shaped their lives. There is much for all of us to learn in these challenging times from the personal journey she shares in this eloquent book!
November 18, 2024
Kerstin Lange has written a masterpiece.
In “Phantom Border: A Personal Reconnaissance of Contemporary Germany” the author is able to combine attentive historical analysis, perspectives from solid anthropological and ecological research, journalistic investigative approach, precise references to timeframes, social understanding cultural dimensions, and contemporary issues. While all these talents are directly displayed throughout the book and corroborate the perspectives of the complex and multifaceted history of modern Germany, the true strength of the book lies elsewhere.
It is the narrative, both poetic and scientific, dreamlike and personable, which makes the reading of this book so easy and captivating, as if one were to be directly catapulted in the years leading to the famed date 999 (in the old calendar, 9er 9, 198...9) which changed the course of German society. And the book makes certain to present the true history of the fall of the Berlin wall, not as corrupted in such misrepresenting statements such as “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” which did not, in fact, really contribute to this change (at least, not nearly as the much more fundamental contribution of St. John Paul II and Solidarność). In fact, the term of the “German-German Border” was indeed “Antifaschistischer Schutzwall” or “Antifascist Protection Wall,” where the “Fascists “were not only the BRD, but the West-at-large, spearheaded by the USA.
Food for thought, certainly, which this fantastic book helps refine and stimulate, but whose ultimate goal -well achieved- is a further development of a deeper understanding, tolerance, and mutual respect for all humanity, in all its complexity.
In “Phantom Border: A Personal Reconnaissance of Contemporary Germany” the author is able to combine attentive historical analysis, perspectives from solid anthropological and ecological research, journalistic investigative approach, precise references to timeframes, social understanding cultural dimensions, and contemporary issues. While all these talents are directly displayed throughout the book and corroborate the perspectives of the complex and multifaceted history of modern Germany, the true strength of the book lies elsewhere.
It is the narrative, both poetic and scientific, dreamlike and personable, which makes the reading of this book so easy and captivating, as if one were to be directly catapulted in the years leading to the famed date 999 (in the old calendar, 9er 9, 198...9) which changed the course of German society. And the book makes certain to present the true history of the fall of the Berlin wall, not as corrupted in such misrepresenting statements such as “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” which did not, in fact, really contribute to this change (at least, not nearly as the much more fundamental contribution of St. John Paul II and Solidarność). In fact, the term of the “German-German Border” was indeed “Antifaschistischer Schutzwall” or “Antifascist Protection Wall,” where the “Fascists “were not only the BRD, but the West-at-large, spearheaded by the USA.
Food for thought, certainly, which this fantastic book helps refine and stimulate, but whose ultimate goal -well achieved- is a further development of a deeper understanding, tolerance, and mutual respect for all humanity, in all its complexity.
February 20, 2025
This is a page-turner that is hard to put down! It’s primarily a personal account of bicycling along and through the former demarcation between East and West Germany. Lange provides ample and emotive descriptions of landscapes, wild species, architecture and her encounters with people. Those encounters – some planned, some spontaneous – are especially rich elements of the story that she weaves, as they often reveal personal accounts and perspectives of life during the Cold War, reactions to the fall of the Wall and life-changes after reunification. Lange also integrates history in a way that is very accessible and relevant to understanding today’s unified Germany. With her background in anthropology and natural history, plus an introspective personality, she shares insights, questions and reflections that deepen the meaning of her journey. One leaves this highly-readable book with a greater understanding of what Germany and her people have experienced, the substantial benefits of the protected Green Belt that was the stark and deadly borderland for more than four decades, and Lange’s skill as a writer.
January 23, 2025
The Iron Curtain, the border dividing Germany after 2nd WW into East and West Germany was extremely fortified by the East German Government from early 1960 to hinder East Germans fleeing to the West. Especially Lange's empathetic interviews with concerned individuals along the some 800 miles long border touched me thoroughly. Although I had heard and read about the inhumanity, separated families, political indoctrination, torturing, and killing over decades before, this book made me shiver. But the author found a balance between evil and good by conveying the very positive result that Nature flourished in the Death Zone. Is that the Phantom? Possibly. Now, as a native to Germany, I want to see this miracle myself which came to light after the Berlin Wall came down end of 1989 and thereby all the border fortifications. Very Good Read!
Heiner Wischhusen
Heiner Wischhusen
December 14, 2024
In the late 2010s, Kerstin Lange set out to explore what formed a border between East and West Germany for decades—until the Wall fall in 1989 and Germany was reunited soon thereafter. The “Green Belt,” which she examined by bicycle, is a nature preserve along much of the 870 miles of the former border.
She sought out what remained of the border installations, and spoke to local residents to understand how families and little towns survived the forced separation for forty years. Sometimes, the route itself was hard to discern. The region’s history did not of course begin solely upon the founding of East and West Germany: Lange came across 12th-century cathedrals, the historically Catholic “island” of Eichsfeld in a Protestant region, the remains of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, the residue of shifting sand dunes. On her travels, she met interesting people who had lived in the border zone, an area monitored particularly closely by East Germany; Westerners who would wave across to the other side; a village separated for decades into two; a group of former border guards from both sides, older gentlemen, who meet several times a year as a gesture of reconciliation, among many others.
Kerstin, originally from Bremen, Germany, has spent her adult life in New York and Vermont. A naturalist by avocation, a lover of woods and birds who has studied anthropology and ecological planning, Kerstin brings her uniquely gentle, observant sensibility to the people and places she encountered. Her strong connection to two quite different places triggers fascinating ruminations on home, on borders, and on how Othering manifests in her homelands. For those who are curious about how a place resonates, and particularly, for those who want to explore the specific resonances in Germany, in the landscape and in Germans’ lives, of being separated and then reunited.
She sought out what remained of the border installations, and spoke to local residents to understand how families and little towns survived the forced separation for forty years. Sometimes, the route itself was hard to discern. The region’s history did not of course begin solely upon the founding of East and West Germany: Lange came across 12th-century cathedrals, the historically Catholic “island” of Eichsfeld in a Protestant region, the remains of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, the residue of shifting sand dunes. On her travels, she met interesting people who had lived in the border zone, an area monitored particularly closely by East Germany; Westerners who would wave across to the other side; a village separated for decades into two; a group of former border guards from both sides, older gentlemen, who meet several times a year as a gesture of reconciliation, among many others.
Kerstin, originally from Bremen, Germany, has spent her adult life in New York and Vermont. A naturalist by avocation, a lover of woods and birds who has studied anthropology and ecological planning, Kerstin brings her uniquely gentle, observant sensibility to the people and places she encountered. Her strong connection to two quite different places triggers fascinating ruminations on home, on borders, and on how Othering manifests in her homelands. For those who are curious about how a place resonates, and particularly, for those who want to explore the specific resonances in Germany, in the landscape and in Germans’ lives, of being separated and then reunited.
December 19, 2024
I loved this extraordinary account of a person on a journey to discover what has happened to a place once savaged by human hands but now in the process of healing. The author combines personal experiences, historical perspectives, and acute observations of the people and wildlilfe she meets. In one chapter, she muses on what makes a place sacred; in another she catches sight of a black stork--a bird she'd never seen in her life. In telling about her journey, she shares the thrill of discovering how a group of people and a group of places are living through a powerful transformation. Great reading!
April 28, 2025
I agree wholeheartedly with previous reviewers. For me however the joy I had in reading the book was the apparently effortless flow of the prose. It felt like riding along on my bike with a very knowledgeable friend pointing out salient features of the environment & introducing new friends along the way. In addition, it enhanced my memories of previous travels in Germany, and inspired some thoughts about what the German experience might have to say about current social divisions in the the US today.
August 24, 2025
Outstanding work -- wonderfully readable, and deeply thought-provoking. The author's exploration of the former east/west border and all that it influenced, and continues to, is wise, empathetic and powerful. This memoir of her personal journey along the border and interviews with those who lived on either side of it makes for very compelling reading with themes relevant to many challenging aspects of the human experience today.
November 19, 2025
This is the kind of book you want everyone you know to read. You fall in love with the author as she takes her father's bike along the former border between East and West Germany. She has a deep understanding of the nature and history of the border and you feel you are there as she strikes up acquaintances with former guards and mayors and learns of the difficulties residents of the borderlands faced. Such an unusual mixture of anthropology, ecology, and history. It will stay in my memory.
December 13, 2024
Phantom Border is a remarkable work of anthropology. The author gives the reader an intimate and fascinating look at the people and animals who resided along the former border area that divided Germany during the Cold War.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews