There is a mistake at 12:41 - I am saying "It is governed by a 1941 international convention". The correct year is 1949, of course 1941 wasn't a good time for conventions as France was under German occupation at that time. I made a mistake when dubbing the video.
0:02-0:04 Why is the German national flag hoisted upside down on the Rathaus (City Hall) building of Laufenburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany? If it's hoisted at half mast then it would be understandable that an important person has recently died, but it's quite another when they hoist their national flag upside down. Does this border town hate the Federal Republic of Germany so much that they want to join the Swiss Confederation?
@@xapaga1 I have no answer to your question, but I think it's worth mentioning that when I arrived in Bad Säckingen (Germany) on August 1st (Swiss National Day), the city was full of Swiss flags and everybody was celebrating the Swiss holiday... That was very strange for me
An other is the following: As Swiss is part of the Schengen Agreement (Schengen Area is not the same as EU, eg the UK used not to be part of Schengen but part of the EU), there are no custom controls at this border too.
Basel is special. There is not only a DB owned and managed station (Basel Badischer Bahnhof, which is as you pointed out operated by DB InfraGo AG formerly known as DB Stations and Services AG which merged with DB Netz in january). On the Concourse of Basel SBB there is a station that is operated by the French operator SNCF. (Bâle SNCF or Basel SNCF) And even runs on French train electrical system. Switzerland, Germany and Austria have standardized on 15kV, 16,7 Hz ac. Where France uses 25kV, 50 Hz ac and 1.5 kV dc for its railways. Though there have been efforts to move the local services from Basel airport and France to Basel SBB and integrate the SNCF station into the SBB concourse and move the SNCF services to electrical multiple units that can run on 15kV and 25kV. The former TGV services that operated into Basel (SNCF) already moved over to the main concourse in Basel SBB
There is also a German railway station in Polish city Świnoujście. This city is located at Baltic Sea coast, near the Polish-German border, neighbouring German city Ahlbeck on the other side of the border. However, unlike many of the cases shown in this video, these are not two parts of one former city; these were always two clearly separate cities, although before WWII the entire area belonged to Germany, and Świnoujście was a German city too, called Swinemünde. Świnoujście is uniquely located on two neighbouring islands; eastern part of the city is located on Wolin island, which is entirely Polish, and western (main) part on Usedom/Uznam island, which is divided between Germany and Poland (hence the double name, in both languages). Both parts of the city are connected by ferries and now also by underwater tunnel built just recently, in this year. The Polish railway network reaches only the eastern part of the city (as it would be hard to get the tracks through to the other island ;)) and the Polish railway station is located there. On the other side, the German part of Usedom island is serviced by a local railway UBB (Usedomer Bäderbahn), and in 2007 UBB network was extended to western part of Świnoujście and a German railway station has been built there.
There is a Liechtenstein bus route that goes through three countries. Starts in Sargans, Switzerland, goes the entire length of Liechtenstein, ending up in Feldkirch, Austria.
Singapore & Malaysia have public buses connecting the 2 countries together, meanwhile with a unique arrangement at the border crossings, where passengers have to tap their stored-value cards when alighting for passport control, but the fare computer is programmed not to deduct the passengers' fare at that point of time (which is instead done only when they alight at their final destination after crossing the border). After clearing passport control they can board any public bus from the same bus service instead of only the bus they'd alighted from, so that bus won't have to be held up at the border crossing waiting for passengers who take longer to clear passport control, with those passengers being allowed to take the next bus instead
Neustraße in Herzogenrath (GER) and Nieuwstraat in Kerkrade (NL). A shared street of 2 kilometers, with German houses on one side of the road and Dutch houses on the other side.
From 1966 to 1969 I studied in Aachen, and during the week I lived in Herzogenrath-Strass (D). From the window of my room I could look into Kerkrade (NL), about 150 meters away. A wall about 60 cm high in the middle of Neustrasse/Nieuwstraat was the border between Germany and the Netherlands. It was not allowed to cross this wall. To get to the shops on Nieuwstraat I had to drive a few kilometres north or south to the next border control point. There I had to show my ID card and car registration form as well as the green document for my car insurance... A lot has changed since.
Small correction: The Deutsche Bahn station in Basel is called "Basel Badischer Bahnhof" for long. Baden was the historic German state bordering Switzerland to the North after the Napoleonic Wars, and "Badisch" means "of Baden". It follows a tradition of naming stations in cities with several stations terminating different railway lines after their respective state or company of origin. After the foundation of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and thus the dissolving most of the state railways in Germany after World War I, many of those station names disappeared, as they were replaced by more functional names like Hauptbahnhof (main station). But at some places, they still can be found. Leipzig for instance has a station named Bayrischer Bahnhof (Bavarian Station), and Berlin Hauptbahnhof replaces two former stations called Anhalter Bahnhof (named after the former Anhaltian states, now part of Saxony-Anhalt, and still existing as an S-Bahn stop) and Lehrter Stadtbahnhof (Lehrte City station), named after the town of Lehrte near Hanover, where the Berlin-Hannover railway connects to the network of the former Royal Hanoverian State Railways.
Thank you for the historical input, that was interesting. For instance I didn't know why Berlin Hbf was earlier called Lehrter Bahnhof as I never heard about the city Lehrte. As for the naming of Basel Bad, when editing this video I knew that the German name of the station is "Basel Badischer Bahnhof" and I was thinking how to name it in the video in English. I guessed that naming it "Basel Baden railway station" in English would be correct. But you are right, everyone uses German "Basel Badischer Bahnhof" in English, my bad.
Meanwhile for Japan station names can occasionally get a bit confusing e.g. Namba, Osaka Namba & JR Namba are 3 train stations served by different train companies that're beside one another in Osaka, while Hankyu, one of Japan's train operators, previously didn't name its major stations after the cities that they're in at all e.g. Sannomiya station is near the main _shinkansen_ /HSR station serving Kobe city, while its terminus station serving Kyoto city was named Kawaramachi (after the city's namesake shopping street that's beside the station) & the station serving Osaka city is called Umeda (the name of the district where the station is in)
Konstanz (Constanze) wasn't bombed because the mayor of Kreuzlingen told the mayor of Konstanz that when the to leave on the streetlights. The American airfoce had told him to leave on the streetlights, so the bombers were able to differentiate between Swizerland and Germany. Because the cities were very friendly the information was passed on to the German side as well. That is how Konstanze survived the second World War untouched.
13:11. Basel airport is connected to CH by a special road which is controlled by CH but on F territory. If you leave the airport via CH, you will end up on this road which only goes to CH.
Yes, I know, once I even went there by foot and a few times - by public bus to Basel :) I know that there are also buses to Germany and France from another sector, but I never went that way. Thanks for your comment :)
@@kmltraveler I am from Australia (no land borders) and crossed into Germany from Basel on the tram very early in the morning in April 2023. German police came on board to check ID whilst the tram was between the last two stops in Switzerland. It seemed very odd.
@@gregessex1851 they do checks from time to time. Unfortunately those checks became more regular today. However, it's still a lottery. At the moment there is a border control even between Poland and Germany (only one way to Germany). In my video you can see the border Switzerland-France and there was no control there, it was in May 2023. Today the situation may be different.
@kmltraveler Basel area: You forgot to mention the tramway nr 10-line, which crosses the swiss-french border after Flüh, then has a stop in France, and after that rejoins Switzerland!
Konstanz / Constance is also an example for a town divided by a border. The division was one of the results of the "Swabian war" of 1499 by Emperor Maximilian I and his reluctant ally, the Swabian League, against the Old Swiss Confederacy. The outcome was that the southern and western outskirts of Constance became Swiss (the abbey and settlement of Kreuzlingen in the South and the Tägermoos in the West), Rottweil had to abandon his membership application for the Confederacy, while Schaffhausen was allowed to stay in the Confederacy, except for some remaining Habsburg estates like the exclave of Büsingen. (The membership of Constance in the Confederacy had been rejected by the rural cantons in the Confederacy around 1480).
That German owned railway station in Switzerland reminds me of the Singapore one which was owned by Malaysia so say you went on a train from Singapore to Kula Lumpur you technically left Singapore when you walked into the station.It's less interesting now as Singapore slowly bought the line back and closed it! Despite the Swiss being German speaking they diverged significantly from Germany at the time of the Reformation.Luther and Zwingli saw the Host in a different way and couldn't agree.
Basel Badischer Bahnhof was built prior to the unification of Germany. The station was built in accordance with a contract between the Grandduchy Baden and the Swiss Federation in 1852 that if the planned railway between Mannheim, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Offenburg, Freiburg (Breisgau) would continue up to Basel in Switzerland. The operation would stay under the management of the Railway of the grand duchy in perpetuity. Which DB is the legal successor to
There is a dedicated international railway connecting Koblenz (CH) & Waldshut (DE). Can’t more longer than 4km, there used to be a Schienenbus (rail bus) with manual transmission running this line; but last time I visited I was a little disappointed to find a modern train instead. I used to live in Switzerland (Baden AG) but travel to Waldshut (either by rail or bicycle)to buy my bier!
thanks a lot for your interesting details. when I was preparing this video, I read again about Waldenburgerbahn - the railway that I ride somewhere in early 2021. I was surprised to find out that it changed the track gauge (Spurweite) from 750 mm to 1000 mm since the moment I ride it. I wanted to mention about it in the video, but then decided that it would be out of topic and way too much for this video.
Whilst stopping near Freiburg in the summer, I took advantage of the German 49 euro ticket and the special status of Basel-Bad to do a "free" international trip into Switzerland. Of course to travel further into Basel I had to buy an SBB ticket which I used to get the tram into the city and also to travel around and visit various sights. I also decided to travel up to the Airport (by bus) to get a 3rd country (France) in.
Basel Badischer Bahnhof counts as a domestic Station. Even on long distance trains. If you travel to and from Switzerland on ICEs it is worth checking from Basel SBB on both DB and SBB sites and Badischer Bahnhof on DBs
I live far away from a border in the middle of Bavaria but our small town is far away from big cities so we also had no damage in the world wars. We have a complete town wall with towers which were built in the 15th century.
Dixperlo-Suderwick (NL/D). Both towns (well, technically Suderwick isn't a town) have a single joint police station and post office. Also the local care home consists of two separate units connected by a bridge spanning over the main road which is the border. The village of Suderwick was annexed 1945 and grew into one town with Dinxperlo before being returned 1963. Some of the older buildings still retain typical Dutch features.
There are indeed a few weird spots at the Swiss-German border. Some of them Being Konstanz on the southern (Swiss side) of the Rhine, and some Swiss Cities like Schaffhausen and Basel being on the northern (German side) of the Rhine. Also there is a german city (Büsingen) inside Switzerland. On another Note, do you Know, that in the Bodensee, there is no defined border between Switzerland and Germany? It was just never defined in the past, and no one seems to bother. 😂 I have a few more on the German-Austrian Border: One is the Austrian de-facto exclave of Jungholz, only acessable through Germany but connecting to the Rest of Austria at a single point on top of a Mountain. And another one is the so called deutsches Eck, it's the Railway connection from Salzburg to Tirol. There is a railway connection through Austria over a mountain pass, but the fastest connection is through Germany. The Austrian Railways ÖBB are really not happy with this situation, because this Important strech of railway is not under their control.
You forgot about Görlitz/Zgorzelec. It also is connected by transportation network, i.e. train connection, but no international city public transit. There were also Ostseebus connections to Świnoujście, which also has public transit in a form of city buses, but, unfortunately, these are extinct since then, as the buses had a border stop called Ahlbeck, Grenze / Granica, but Usedomer Bahn still serves Świnoujście with German side of Usedom Island.
I mentioned Görlitz in the video - there was my photo of the railway station in Görlitz and my photo of ruins of railway station in Zgorzelec. I hope it was just a reconstruction phase and now it looks fine 😁 But because I have almost no photos of this bordering cities (and absolutely no videos), I decided not to go in details about them in my video. I'm trying to use more own content and less stock videos/photos. Görlitz is a very beautiful city, it's worth a separate video, maybe I'll come there in 2024 and film it for my blog. But for now I have a lot more things to publish :)
As for Swinoujscie, I was there a few times too, also interesting place as it has a German railway station on one bank of the river, and a Polish railway station on another bank.
6:24 The stations name is “Basel-Badischer Bahnhof” -the other one is Basel SBB ,sided by BASEL SNCF 13:12 If you fly to the Euroairport , only the BSL ticket give you access to “Duty Free”-the MLH don’t gives you that from Europe ! BSL/MLH is in fact the only airport operated by two countries in the world ! Btw; Tram 6 is foreseen to be re-installed between Riehen-Grenze (CH) and Lörrach (D) like it was until 1969 in some years…
@@kmltraveler The Strasbourg-Basel line was the first train line in Switzerland… Opening in 1844 , the city wall had a special extension with a door for the rails to prevent French invasion… First Swiss line in 1848
@aoilpe: "Tram 6 is foreseen to be re-installed between Riehen-Grenze (CH) and Lörrach (D)" This plan will probably not become reality. There is already a S-Train line of the Swiss SBB (S6) running from Basel SBB Main Station to Zell im Wiesental and a shuttle line from Steinen to Weil am Rhein (S5). So it was found that building a Tram-line (without really knowing where exactly, the area is full of buildings and railroads) is not the most necessary thing. What will probably happen is an extension of the Tram 8 from Basel-Kleinhüningen into Weil am Rhein to a turnaround loop at the crossing of Hauptstrasse and Römerstrasse/Hinterdorfstrasse.
@@michaelschuckart2217 6 - running on Basler Strasse, where it was 60 years ago…and the 8 coming through Altweil to be connected to the 6 at “Weilstrasse” to be taken to Riehen Grenze. Btw, trains and trams have different purposes - see Wiesentalbahn and tram 6 Basel - Riehen (-Lörrach) or Basel- St.Louis(F) Basel- Aesch ect…
The old bridge in Laufenburg has been closed 2005 for car traffic (after construction of a new bridge east of Laufenburg where customs offices have been moved too). Before that closure car traffic was a real mess. It might have been worth mentioning, that the railway tracks on Rhine Swiss side connect Basel not only to Laufenburg, but to Koblenz (the one in Switzerland) - just that for almost 30 years used for merchandise trains only, Laufenburg to Koblenz passenger service is limited to buses. Rheinfelden has limited car traffic over the old bridge to public transport and cabs - after the construction of a motorway bridge west of Rheinfelden. There is no "Basel Bad" railway station in Basel - the station is called Basel Badischer Bahnhof. Even though the abreviation Basel Bad is used on maps and for timetables. Basel Minster (Münster) was built as a cathedral - but is not really a cathedral since Basel became a protestant town. I have never heard someone in Basel calling the church otherwise than "Münster".
Jean-emmanuelrotzetter6030: "The old bridge in Laufenburg has been closed 2005 for car traffic (after construction of a new bridge east of Laufenburg where customs offices have been moved too)." Said new bridge suffered a small flaw, as it was found out, that the elevation of the southern (swiss) abutment differed by about 0,8 m. The reason was, that elevation of german maps are based on sea-level of the North sea, swiss maps are based on the Mediterranean Sea, which happen to differ by about 0.8 m. ;-)
In Costa Rica we have a town on the border with Panama, there's no free movement treaty, but the town has a lot of stores with two fronts, one in Panama and one in Costa Rica, so you can shop there without legally enter the other country
You forgot about Tram 10 which goes from Switzerland through France (Leymen, Alsace) to Switzerland. Tram 3 crosses the border to France (to St. Louis /St. Ludwig) and Tram 8 crosses the border to Germany (to Weil am Rhein).
There are a couple of "border cities" within Germany as well. Ulm (Baden-Württember) and Neu-Ulm (Bavaria) are essentially one city. Same goes for Mannheim (BW) and Ludwigshafen (Rhineland-Palatinat). A third exemple is Mainz (Rheineland-Palatinate) and its historical suburbs on the right bank of the Rhine like Mainz-Kastel wich is technically a part of Wiesbaden (Hesse) now.
Switzerland has also Cross-border towns with other Coutries: For exemple St-Gingolph with one part in France and Ponte Tresa with one part in Italy. There are also small villages divided by the border like La Cure where there's even a Hotel in which you can sleep with your head in Switzerland and the feet in France.
A lot of it depends on exchange rates. As a kid in the '80s I remember seeing "Canadian Accepted At Par", sometimes also in French, all over Vermont and far upstate NY, sometime in the early '90s the CAD reached a record low against USD and all those signs came down.
Maybe unwittingly, it was very fitting of you to show the waterfall in Laufenburg, as "Laufen" is an old German word for "waterfall" and most places that have it in their name are named after one.
This shouldn't be something relative. In border areas there is always a incentive to live on one side, work on the other, and buy groceries on the third, or something like that. So the slight differences can drive growth if the bordering cities work with each other. E.g. I would really like to see a tram connecting the Basque coast between France and Spain.
I think of Wendover, UT/NV with its' two huge casinos on either side of the (east/west) main road build right up to the Nevada state line with their parking lots in Utah.
"Germans that previously lived there were forced to relocate and Polish people arrived to live in their homes". Yes, and that's called theft and ethnic cleansing. I'm not German but that's what it's called in plain speech.
there are a lot of trains (also regional trains) that are crossing the border, so I was mentioning only trams and SOME of many public buses. If we start the topic about trains, it will never end :) For example, there is a train line Görlitz - Zittau, it crosses the border a few times and some of the stations on the route are located in Poland.
I think, Bavaria and Austria are much more similar than Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland, that's why this difference is not so much visible between Germany and Austria. Also there are a lot of German-Austrian integration programs, like workers are paying taxes to Germany if they live in Germany but work for Austrian company. So of course people feel like there's no border there. But the difference still exists, I felt it when I went from Lindau to Bregenz. I must say, no matter where you live, near Bodensee or near Salzburg, both places are simply amazing to live.
Yes, when he mentioned that there only 4 cross border tram lines exist in the world, and all of them between Germany, Switzerland and France I realized in what an exemption we live.
The border between Germany (the German states) and Switzerland was already existing before the Napoleon era, wasn't it? 🤔 The official names of the countries might have changed, but the borders didn't significantly.
No. Laufenburg and Rheinfelden had neither been in Switzerland nor in Baden but in the Austrian province Vorderösterreich until Napoleon. He took it away from the Habsburgs and gave the part North of the Rhine to Baden, and the part South of the Rhine to Switzerland.
Sorry for that. It is extremely hard to find a good royalty free music without paid expensive subscriptions like big bloggers do. If some day I will have more subscribers or simply donations, I can use better options. Also feel free to suggest services that have good royalty-free music.
@@kmltraveler Sure that is a problem, but, honestly, your calm and super-understandable voice, your well-prepared textbook and your amazingly illustrative video sequences don't need an additional sound. You may include some clips of original background noises to selected video snippets, but a "sound carpet" isn't necessary by far for that kind of great videos as you are presenting here. i really enjoyed it! 👍
I saw this comment as the video was starting and thought it a petty reason to stop watching. Just over a minute into the video, I had to agree. Stopped watching at 1:15.
It is logical. 300 years ago it was all on the territory of the Holy Roman Empire and thus no borders. Later political developments created new borders. The border region in poland is often neglected because Poland feared that it might had to transfer the land back to Germany after an agreement. Since it was not real sovereign territory, but just "under their administration". Thus they rather exploited the western territories in order to invest in the central region. That changed from 1991 on due to the 2+4 agreements. There are investments again. Stettin looks very representative again. I have been there several times for shopping purposes in my Berlin period :)
Western Poland became Polish under international law and was viewed Polish by Poland itself.. Nowhere in Polish law did it say it was "occupied" territory. 19790 (West) Germany formally recognised that and it was re-confirmed in 1991 after Germany was unified and obtained full sovereignty. But these were just gestures to improve bilteral relations. The Holy Roman Empire was not a unitary state. Formally Switzerland never left it until it was dissolved 1808. In 1648 it was granted exemption from Imperial Law. The border between Swiss cantons and German states date back to medieval times. Modern Switzerland wasn't born until 1848. Two events player a crucial role - the Civil War of 47-48 and the Prussian king abdicating as Duke of Neuenburg/Neuchatel.
5:10 - this is not a memorial for citizens. it literally says "for our warriors". so this is basically a memorial for nazi soldiers (yes i know, many of them were drafted and were actually SPD or KPD voters, but we all know its not for them, since most of them ended up in camps sooner or later)
yes, because during WWI there were a lot of nazi soldiers around..... duh! The memorial is to the citizens of the city that were killed during both wars, nothing to do with nazis, which was basically a political party!
Big faux pas ! This Basel Münster, not cathedral. The word Münster is reserved for protestant churches. The word cathedral is reserved for catholic churches !
Well, I do agree that naming it "minster" (that's "Münster" in English) would be more correct, but saying that cathedral is completely wrong... Basel.com website also names it cathedral in English version of the website :)
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
There is a mistake at 12:41 - I am saying "It is governed by a 1941 international convention". The correct year is 1949, of course 1941 wasn't a good time for conventions as France was under German occupation at that time. I made a mistake when dubbing the video.
0:02-0:04 Why is the German national flag hoisted upside down on the Rathaus (City Hall) building of Laufenburg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany? If it's hoisted at half mast then it would be understandable that an important person has recently died, but it's quite another when they hoist their national flag upside down. Does this border town hate the Federal Republic of Germany so much that they want to join the Swiss Confederation?
@@xapaga1 I have no answer to your question, but I think it's worth mentioning that when I arrived in Bad Säckingen (Germany) on August 1st (Swiss National Day), the city was full of Swiss flags and everybody was celebrating the Swiss holiday... That was very strange for me
An other is the following: As Swiss is part of the Schengen Agreement (Schengen Area is not the same as EU, eg the UK used not to be part of Schengen but part of the EU), there are no custom controls at this border too.
Basel is special. There is not only a DB owned and managed station (Basel Badischer Bahnhof, which is as you pointed out operated by DB InfraGo AG formerly known as DB Stations and Services AG which merged with DB Netz in january).
On the Concourse of Basel SBB there is a station that is operated by the French operator SNCF. (Bâle SNCF or Basel SNCF) And even runs on French train electrical system. Switzerland, Germany and Austria have standardized on 15kV, 16,7 Hz ac. Where France uses 25kV, 50 Hz ac and 1.5 kV dc for its railways.
Though there have been efforts to move the local services from Basel airport and France to Basel SBB and integrate the SNCF station into the SBB concourse and move the SNCF services to electrical multiple units that can run on 15kV and 25kV.
The former TGV services that operated into Basel (SNCF) already moved over to the main concourse in Basel SBB
The Leymen stop of Basel suburban tram route 10 to Rodersdorf is in France. There is just a small sign at the stop indicating this.
There is also a German railway station in Polish city Świnoujście. This city is located at Baltic Sea coast, near the Polish-German border, neighbouring German city Ahlbeck on the other side of the border. However, unlike many of the cases shown in this video, these are not two parts of one former city; these were always two clearly separate cities, although before WWII the entire area belonged to Germany, and Świnoujście was a German city too, called Swinemünde.
Świnoujście is uniquely located on two neighbouring islands; eastern part of the city is located on Wolin island, which is entirely Polish, and western (main) part on Usedom/Uznam island, which is divided between Germany and Poland (hence the double name, in both languages). Both parts of the city are connected by ferries and now also by underwater tunnel built just recently, in this year.
The Polish railway network reaches only the eastern part of the city (as it would be hard to get the tracks through to the other island ;)) and the Polish railway station is located there. On the other side, the German part of Usedom island is serviced by a local railway UBB (Usedomer Bäderbahn), and in 2007 UBB network was extended to western part of Świnoujście and a German railway station has been built there.
There is a Liechtenstein bus route that goes through three countries. Starts in Sargans, Switzerland, goes the entire length of Liechtenstein, ending up in Feldkirch, Austria.
Liechtenstein is not big enough for the bus to turn around ;-).
Singapore & Malaysia have public buses connecting the 2 countries together, meanwhile with a unique arrangement at the border crossings, where passengers have to tap their stored-value cards when alighting for passport control, but the fare computer is programmed not to deduct the passengers' fare at that point of time (which is instead done only when they alight at their final destination after crossing the border). After clearing passport control they can board any public bus from the same bus service instead of only the bus they'd alighted from, so that bus won't have to be held up at the border crossing waiting for passengers who take longer to clear passport control, with those passengers being allowed to take the next bus instead
Neustraße in Herzogenrath (GER) and Nieuwstraat in Kerkrade (NL). A shared street of 2 kilometers, with German houses on one side of the road and Dutch houses on the other side.
There are a few places like this on the USA-Canada border, but due to Homeland Security regulations they are not places that I’d want to visit.
There used to be a little(!) wall between Neustraße and Nieuwstraat which doesn't exist anymore.
From 1966 to 1969 I studied in Aachen, and during the week I lived in Herzogenrath-Strass (D). From the window of my room I could look into Kerkrade (NL), about 150 meters away. A wall about 60 cm high in the middle of Neustrasse/Nieuwstraat was the border between Germany and the Netherlands. It was not allowed to cross this wall. To get to the shops on Nieuwstraat I had to drive a few kilometres north or south to the next border control point. There I had to show my ID card and car registration form as well as the green document for my car insurance... A lot has changed since.
Small correction: The Deutsche Bahn station in Basel is called "Basel Badischer Bahnhof" for long. Baden was the historic German state bordering Switzerland to the North after the Napoleonic Wars, and "Badisch" means "of Baden". It follows a tradition of naming stations in cities with several stations terminating different railway lines after their respective state or company of origin. After the foundation of the Deutsche Reichsbahn and thus the dissolving most of the state railways in Germany after World War I, many of those station names disappeared, as they were replaced by more functional names like Hauptbahnhof (main station). But at some places, they still can be found. Leipzig for instance has a station named Bayrischer Bahnhof (Bavarian Station), and Berlin Hauptbahnhof replaces two former stations called Anhalter Bahnhof (named after the former Anhaltian states, now part of Saxony-Anhalt, and still existing as an S-Bahn stop) and Lehrter Stadtbahnhof (Lehrte City station), named after the town of Lehrte near Hanover, where the Berlin-Hannover railway connects to the network of the former Royal Hanoverian State Railways.
Thank you for the historical input, that was interesting. For instance I didn't know why Berlin Hbf was earlier called Lehrter Bahnhof as I never heard about the city Lehrte. As for the naming of Basel Bad, when editing this video I knew that the German name of the station is "Basel Badischer Bahnhof" and I was thinking how to name it in the video in English. I guessed that naming it "Basel Baden railway station" in English would be correct. But you are right, everyone uses German "Basel Badischer Bahnhof" in English, my bad.
@@kmltraveler My bad… isch.
But we don't use "my bad" in English we use mea culpa.
Meanwhile for Japan station names can occasionally get a bit confusing e.g. Namba, Osaka Namba & JR Namba are 3 train stations served by different train companies that're beside one another in Osaka, while Hankyu, one of Japan's train operators, previously didn't name its major stations after the cities that they're in at all e.g. Sannomiya station is near the main _shinkansen_ /HSR station serving Kobe city, while its terminus station serving Kyoto city was named Kawaramachi (after the city's namesake shopping street that's beside the station) & the station serving Osaka city is called Umeda (the name of the district where the station is in)
Konstanz (Constanze) wasn't bombed because the mayor of Kreuzlingen told the mayor of Konstanz that when the to leave on the streetlights. The American airfoce had told him to leave on the streetlights, so the bombers were able to differentiate between Swizerland and Germany. Because the cities were very friendly the information was passed on to the German side as well. That is how Konstanze survived the second World War untouched.
Great, and very informative video. Looking forward to next !
13:11. Basel airport is connected to CH by a special road which is controlled by CH but on F territory. If you leave the airport via CH, you will end up on this road which only goes to CH.
Yes, I know, once I even went there by foot and a few times - by public bus to Basel :) I know that there are also buses to Germany and France from another sector, but I never went that way. Thanks for your comment :)
@@kmltraveler I am from Australia (no land borders) and crossed into Germany from Basel on the tram very early in the morning in April 2023. German police came on board to check ID whilst the tram was between the last two stops in Switzerland. It seemed very odd.
@@gregessex1851 they do checks from time to time. Unfortunately those checks became more regular today. However, it's still a lottery. At the moment there is a border control even between Poland and Germany (only one way to Germany). In my video you can see the border Switzerland-France and there was no control there, it was in May 2023. Today the situation may be different.
@kmltraveler
Basel area: You forgot to mention the tramway nr 10-line, which crosses the swiss-french border after Flüh, then has a stop in France, and after that rejoins Switzerland!
Konstanz / Constance is also an example for a town divided by a border. The division was one of the results of the "Swabian war" of 1499 by Emperor Maximilian I and his reluctant ally, the Swabian League, against the Old Swiss Confederacy. The outcome was that the southern and western outskirts of Constance became Swiss (the abbey and settlement of Kreuzlingen in the South and the Tägermoos in the West), Rottweil had to abandon his membership application for the Confederacy, while Schaffhausen was allowed to stay in the Confederacy, except for some remaining Habsburg estates like the exclave of Büsingen. (The membership of Constance in the Confederacy had been rejected by the rural cantons in the Confederacy around 1480).
wow - super interesting - thank you !
(i bet now Rural cantons would not rejected Konstanz ;)
You should visit the Haparanda-Tornio border city. Two different time zones, but a common bus station.
I live near Laufenburg and Rheinfelden and visit them often, I liked your coverage!
That German owned railway station in Switzerland reminds me of the Singapore one which was owned by Malaysia so say you went on a train from Singapore to Kula Lumpur you technically left Singapore when you walked into the station.It's less interesting now as Singapore slowly bought the line back and closed it! Despite the Swiss being German speaking they diverged significantly from Germany at the time of the Reformation.Luther and Zwingli saw the Host in a different way and couldn't agree.
Basel Badischer Bahnhof was built prior to the unification of Germany.
The station was built in accordance with a contract between the Grandduchy Baden and the Swiss Federation in 1852 that if the planned railway between Mannheim, Heidelberg, Karlsruhe, Offenburg, Freiburg (Breisgau) would continue up to Basel in Switzerland. The operation would stay under the management of the Railway of the grand duchy in perpetuity. Which DB is the legal successor to
There is a dedicated international railway connecting Koblenz (CH) & Waldshut (DE). Can’t more longer than 4km, there used to be a Schienenbus (rail bus) with manual transmission running this line; but last time I visited I was a little disappointed to find a modern train instead. I used to live in Switzerland (Baden AG) but travel to Waldshut (either by rail or bicycle)to buy my bier!
thanks a lot for your interesting details. when I was preparing this video, I read again about Waldenburgerbahn - the railway that I ride somewhere in early 2021. I was surprised to find out that it changed the track gauge (Spurweite) from 750 mm to 1000 mm since the moment I ride it. I wanted to mention about it in the video, but then decided that it would be out of topic and way too much for this video.
Whilst stopping near Freiburg in the summer, I took advantage of the German 49 euro ticket and the special status of Basel-Bad to do a "free" international trip into Switzerland. Of course to travel further into Basel I had to buy an SBB ticket which I used to get the tram into the city and also to travel around and visit various sights. I also decided to travel up to the Airport (by bus) to get a 3rd country (France) in.
Basel Badischer Bahnhof counts as a domestic Station. Even on long distance trains. If you travel to and from Switzerland on ICEs it is worth checking from Basel SBB on both DB and SBB sites and Badischer Bahnhof on DBs
Danke für diese sehr interessant und informativ Video
What an awesome vlog! Thanks for sharing this @kmltraveler !
Thanks for watching :)
I live far away from a border in the middle of Bavaria but our small town is far away from big cities so we also had no damage in the world wars. We have a complete town wall with towers which were built in the 15th century.
what is the name of the town?
I would like to visit it one day - to see how the Geman towns really looked like in the medieval times.
@@misiek7676 Berching
Lovely video! I enjoyed it a lot. Hopefully one day I can cross the border on a tram too.
Dixperlo-Suderwick (NL/D). Both towns (well, technically Suderwick isn't a town) have a single joint police station and post office. Also the local care home consists of two separate units connected by a bridge spanning over the main road which is the border. The village of Suderwick was annexed 1945 and grew into one town with Dinxperlo before being returned 1963. Some of the older buildings still retain typical Dutch features.
There are indeed a few weird spots at the Swiss-German border. Some of them Being Konstanz on the southern (Swiss side) of the Rhine, and some Swiss Cities like Schaffhausen and Basel being on the northern (German side) of the Rhine. Also there is a german city (Büsingen) inside Switzerland.
On another Note, do you Know, that in the Bodensee, there is no defined border between Switzerland and Germany? It was just never defined in the past, and no one seems to bother. 😂
I have a few more on the German-Austrian Border: One is the Austrian de-facto exclave of Jungholz, only acessable through Germany but connecting to the Rest of Austria at a single point on top of a Mountain. And another one is the so called deutsches Eck, it's the Railway connection from Salzburg to Tirol. There is a railway connection through Austria over a mountain pass, but the fastest connection is through Germany. The Austrian Railways ÖBB are really not happy with this situation, because this Important strech of railway is not under their control.
Swinoujscie Centrum is not run by DB directly but by a Polish subsidiary of their subsidiary.
You forgot about Görlitz/Zgorzelec. It also is connected by transportation network, i.e. train connection, but no international city public transit. There were also Ostseebus connections to Świnoujście, which also has public transit in a form of city buses, but, unfortunately, these are extinct since then, as the buses had a border stop called Ahlbeck, Grenze / Granica, but Usedomer Bahn still serves Świnoujście with German side of Usedom Island.
I mentioned Görlitz in the video - there was my photo of the railway station in Görlitz and my photo of ruins of railway station in Zgorzelec. I hope it was just a reconstruction phase and now it looks fine 😁 But because I have almost no photos of this bordering cities (and absolutely no videos), I decided not to go in details about them in my video. I'm trying to use more own content and less stock videos/photos. Görlitz is a very beautiful city, it's worth a separate video, maybe I'll come there in 2024 and film it for my blog. But for now I have a lot more things to publish :)
As for Swinoujscie, I was there a few times too, also interesting place as it has a German railway station on one bank of the river, and a Polish railway station on another bank.
Since 01/2023 Görlitz has also public bus service making a 2.5 km trip on the polish side in Zgorzelec.
6:24 The stations name is “Basel-Badischer Bahnhof” -the other one is Basel SBB ,sided by BASEL SNCF
13:12 If you fly to the Euroairport , only the BSL ticket give you access to “Duty Free”-the MLH don’t gives you that from Europe ! BSL/MLH is in fact the only airport operated by two countries in the world !
Btw; Tram 6 is foreseen to be re-installed between Riehen-Grenze (CH) and Lörrach (D) like it was until 1969 in some years…
Wow, didn't know that there's also "French" Basel SNCF! Thank you for this interesting information
@@kmltraveler
The Strasbourg-Basel line was the first train line in Switzerland…
Opening in 1844 , the city wall had a special extension with a door for the rails to prevent French invasion…
First Swiss line in 1848
@aoilpe: "Tram 6 is foreseen to be re-installed between Riehen-Grenze (CH) and Lörrach (D)"
This plan will probably not become reality. There is already a S-Train line of the Swiss SBB (S6) running from Basel SBB Main Station to Zell im Wiesental and a shuttle line from Steinen to Weil am Rhein (S5). So it was found that building a Tram-line (without really knowing where exactly, the area is full of buildings and railroads) is not the most necessary thing. What will probably happen is an extension of the Tram 8 from Basel-Kleinhüningen into Weil am Rhein to a turnaround loop at the crossing of Hauptstrasse and Römerstrasse/Hinterdorfstrasse.
@@michaelschuckart2217
6 - running on Basler Strasse, where it was 60 years ago…and the 8 coming through Altweil to be connected to the 6 at “Weilstrasse” to be taken to Riehen Grenze.
Btw, trains and trams have different purposes - see Wiesentalbahn and tram 6 Basel - Riehen (-Lörrach) or Basel- St.Louis(F) Basel- Aesch ect…
The old bridge in Laufenburg has been closed 2005 for car traffic (after construction of a new bridge east of Laufenburg where customs offices have been moved too). Before that closure car traffic was a real mess. It might have been worth mentioning, that the railway tracks on Rhine Swiss side connect Basel not only to Laufenburg, but to Koblenz (the one in Switzerland) - just that for almost 30 years used for merchandise trains only, Laufenburg to Koblenz passenger service is limited to buses.
Rheinfelden has limited car traffic over the old bridge to public transport and cabs - after the construction of a motorway bridge west of Rheinfelden.
There is no "Basel Bad" railway station in Basel - the station is called Basel Badischer Bahnhof. Even though the abreviation Basel Bad is used on maps and for timetables.
Basel Minster (Münster) was built as a cathedral - but is not really a cathedral since Basel became a protestant town. I have never heard someone in Basel calling the church otherwise than "Münster".
Jean-emmanuelrotzetter6030: "The old bridge in Laufenburg has been closed 2005 for car traffic (after construction of a new bridge east of Laufenburg where customs offices have been moved too)."
Said new bridge suffered a small flaw, as it was found out, that the elevation of the southern (swiss) abutment differed by about 0,8 m. The reason was, that elevation of german maps are based on sea-level of the North sea, swiss maps are based on the Mediterranean Sea, which happen to differ by about 0.8 m. ;-)
In Costa Rica we have a town on the border with Panama, there's no free movement treaty, but the town has a lot of stores with two fronts, one in Panama and one in Costa Rica, so you can shop there without legally enter the other country
You forgot about Tram 10 which goes from Switzerland through France (Leymen, Alsace) to Switzerland. Tram 3 crosses the border to France (to St. Louis /St. Ludwig) and Tram 8 crosses the border to Germany (to Weil am Rhein).
I just want to know if same kinds of sausage are sold on both sides of German/Polish border. Since both countries are known for that food
There is also a streetcar from Trieste (Italy) to Opicina (Slovenia), which runs as Line 2 of the "Trieste Trasporti" society.
There are a couple of "border cities" within Germany as well. Ulm (Baden-Württember) and Neu-Ulm (Bavaria) are essentially one city. Same goes for Mannheim (BW) and Ludwigshafen (Rhineland-Palatinat). A third exemple is Mainz (Rheineland-Palatinate) and its historical suburbs on the right bank of the Rhine like Mainz-Kastel wich is technically a part of Wiesbaden (Hesse) now.
Its always weird seeing the Signs when leaving RLP-Mainz and entering Wiesbaden: Mainz-Kastell City of Wiesbaden
Switzerland has also Cross-border towns with other Coutries: For exemple St-Gingolph with one part in France and Ponte Tresa with one part in Italy. There are also small villages divided by the border like La Cure where there's even a Hotel in which you can sleep with your head in Switzerland and the feet in France.
A very interesting video. Presumably in towns that cross borders you can spend each country’s currency both sides of the border.
A lot of it depends on exchange rates. As a kid in the '80s I remember seeing "Canadian Accepted At Par", sometimes also in French, all over Vermont and far upstate NY, sometime in the early '90s the CAD reached a record low against USD and all those signs came down.
Enjoyed that. I've had holidays in that area.
Maybe unwittingly, it was very fitting of you to show the waterfall in Laufenburg, as "Laufen" is an old German word for "waterfall" and most places that have it in their name are named after one.
This shouldn't be something relative. In border areas there is always a incentive to live on one side, work on the other, and buy groceries on the third, or something like that. So the slight differences can drive growth if the bordering cities work with each other. E.g. I would really like to see a tram connecting the Basque coast between France and Spain.
I think of Wendover, UT/NV with its' two huge casinos on either side of the (east/west) main road build right up to the Nevada state line with their parking lots in Utah.
1:37 Couldn't even tell if its on the german or polish side.
About the german-swiss bordertowns: The Swiss had ready-to-blow explosives in the bridges until 2014 :D :D
Basel Tram 10 to Rodersdorf stops briefly in France at Leymen \m/
"Germans that previously lived there were forced to relocate and Polish people arrived to live in their homes". Yes, and that's called theft and ethnic cleansing. I'm not German but that's what it's called in plain speech.
Those Polish people were victims of theft and ethnic cleansing as well, by the Soviet Union.
@@bibliopolist Yes, that's true. Both are true.
@@bibliopolistthat's a stupid " schoolyard " excuse !
You forgot UBB .. a local train system that got one final stop in Swinoujscie, Poland.
there are a lot of trains (also regional trains) that are crossing the border, so I was mentioning only trams and SOME of many public buses. If we start the topic about trains, it will never end :) For example, there is a train line Görlitz - Zittau, it crosses the border a few times and some of the stations on the route are located in Poland.
I live at the Germany-Austria border. Interesting how you think about this
For me, this is just "normal" now, I don't think about it.
I think, Bavaria and Austria are much more similar than Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland, that's why this difference is not so much visible between Germany and Austria. Also there are a lot of German-Austrian integration programs, like workers are paying taxes to Germany if they live in Germany but work for Austrian company. So of course people feel like there's no border there. But the difference still exists, I felt it when I went from Lindau to Bregenz. I must say, no matter where you live, near Bodensee or near Salzburg, both places are simply amazing to live.
Yes, when he mentioned that there only 4 cross border tram lines exist in the world, and all of them between Germany, Switzerland and France I realized in what an exemption we live.
@@kmltraveler Salzburg
@@gargoyle7863 Salzburg also has their S-Bahn running Cross Border.
A very entertaining video
The border between Germany (the German states) and Switzerland was already existing before the Napoleon era, wasn't it? 🤔
The official names of the countries might have changed, but the borders didn't significantly.
No. Laufenburg and Rheinfelden had neither been in Switzerland nor in Baden but in the Austrian province Vorderösterreich until Napoleon. He took it away from the Habsburgs and gave the part North of the Rhine to Baden, and the part South of the Rhine to Switzerland.
@@eljanrimsa5843
Thank you for the information.
I've learned something new.
Have a nice day 👋🏻👴🏼
A really interesting story spoiled by the high pitched beeping in the music.
It just is. You walk from Konstanz into Switzerland in town...
Europe's Schengen area: what if I told you these borders are invisible? 😂
Not really. Each Tram to Weil am Rhein is checked thoroughly by the German Bundespolizei. The delay at the border can be up to 10 minutes.
The swiss german border was fixed in 1648 and was Not altered by Napoleon.
Rheinfelden Germany wasn't really a thing until the late 1900s - that's why there is no historical city center
Thanks for supporting Ukraine!
❤🇺🇦🙏
This would be a very good video if it was not for the annoying intrusive music
Sorry for that. It is extremely hard to find a good royalty free music without paid expensive subscriptions like big bloggers do. If some day I will have more subscribers or simply donations, I can use better options. Also feel free to suggest services that have good royalty-free music.
@@kmltraveler Sure that is a problem, but, honestly, your calm and super-understandable voice, your well-prepared textbook and your amazingly illustrative video sequences don't need an additional sound. You may include some clips of original background noises to selected video snippets, but a "sound carpet" isn't necessary by far for that kind of great videos as you are presenting here.
i really enjoyed it! 👍
Architecture on the east german side and polish side isnt really different at all. Both are post soviet architecture
Interesting commentary, but I gave up watching because of the awful background music.
It is a bit annoying isn't it? Ultimately unnecessary.
I saw this comment as the video was starting and thought it a petty reason to stop watching. Just over a minute into the video, I had to agree. Stopped watching at 1:15.
@@frankhooper7871 I endured it for longer than that, I'm sorry to say.
Musikallergiker lol
I found the music pleasant! Without music the video would be very quiet and more boring!
Frankfurt and Slubice are brothers from an Oder mother
It is logical. 300 years ago it was all on the territory of the Holy Roman Empire and thus no borders. Later political developments created new borders.
The border region in poland is often neglected because Poland feared that it might had to transfer the land back to Germany after an agreement. Since it was not real sovereign territory, but just "under their administration". Thus they rather exploited the western territories in order to invest in the central region.
That changed from 1991 on due to the 2+4 agreements. There are investments again. Stettin looks very representative again. I have been there several times for shopping purposes in my Berlin period :)
Western Poland became Polish under international law and was viewed Polish by Poland itself.. Nowhere in Polish law did it say it was "occupied" territory. 19790 (West) Germany formally recognised that and it was re-confirmed in 1991 after Germany was unified and obtained full sovereignty. But these were just gestures to improve bilteral relations.
The Holy Roman Empire was not a unitary state. Formally Switzerland never left it until it was dissolved 1808. In 1648 it was granted exemption from Imperial Law. The border between Swiss cantons and German states date back to medieval times. Modern Switzerland wasn't born until 1848. Two events player a crucial role - the Civil War of 47-48 and the Prussian king abdicating as Duke of Neuenburg/Neuchatel.
5:10 - this is not a memorial for citizens. it literally says "for our warriors". so this is basically a memorial for nazi soldiers (yes i know, many of them were drafted and were actually SPD or KPD voters, but we all know its not for them, since most of them ended up in camps sooner or later)
yes, because during WWI there were a lot of nazi soldiers around..... duh!
The memorial is to the citizens of the city that were killed during both wars, nothing to do with nazis, which was basically a political party!
Big faux pas ! This Basel Münster, not cathedral. The word Münster is reserved for protestant churches. The word cathedral is reserved for catholic churches !
Well, I do agree that naming it "minster" (that's "Münster" in English) would be more correct, but saying that cathedral is completely wrong... Basel.com website also names it cathedral in English version of the website :)