The Tiny Piece of Germany Surrounded by Switzerland

Along the Rhine River, there's a tiny piece of Germany surrounded on all sides by Switzerland. Büsingen am Hochrhein is an enclave and an exclave that consists of just 3 square miles of territory that is home to over a thousand residents. BBC Travel visited it and learned how this Alpine village remained German territory:

For Büsingen, the problem began in 1693, long before Germany existed. The village was under Austrian control when a family feud over religious allegiance led to the kidnapping of the Catholic-leaning feudal lord of Büsingen. His cousins hauled him to the nearby Swiss (and Protestant) town of Schaffhausen, where he was sentenced to life in prison. It took six years and the threat of Austria invading Schaffhausen to finally free the lord.

A few decades later, when Austria sold its local holdings to the Swiss canton of Zurich, it held on to Büsingen – strictly out of spite, according to historians. “They said it would never go back to Switzerland. Never, ever, ever,” the deputy mayor said.

That meant that when parts of the Austrian Empire were later absorbed by Germany in the 19th Century, Büsingen was claimed by the new republic.

The orderly Swiss tried to clear up the mess in 1919 when it held a referendum that saw Büsingen residents voting by 96% to leave Germany. But Berlin wasn’t interested in giving the town up because Switzerland offered nothing in return.

The people of Büsingen effectively live in two different nations and cross the border as needed:

Nowhere is the division more evident than at Restaurant Waldheim. A line painted across its outdoor dining terrace marks the international border, so it’s possible to be served a plate of schnitzel in Switzerland, and then reach into Germany to grab a stein of beer from the other side of the table.

Still, for residents, living a binational life brings up daily contradictions and choices. Although commerce is typically conducted in Swiss francs and most residents work in nearby, larger Swiss towns, they still must pay the higher German income taxes. Children go to a local (German) primary school, but parents decide in which country they’ll attend high school. Likewise, Büsingen locals have both German and Swiss postal and international telephone codes: callers can dial either Germany’s +49 or Switzerland’s +41, and still ring a resident. And perhaps most notably, the town’s football club is the only German team allowed to play in the Swiss league.

-via Nag on the Lake | Images: Google, Hansueli Krapf