Of border crossings and new walls - cycling through the German soul

"Freedom consists in being able to do everything that does not harm another." With this sentence, the French philosopher Matthieu de Montmorency once defined the limits of individual freedom. While speeches are once again being made in Berlin on this October 3rd to commemorate German Unity Day, I ask myself another question: How much of this freedom, for which people took to the streets in 1989, is still a given today – and how much of it is already up for debate?

October 1, 2025, was a day of that clear radiance that autumn in Franconia sometimes offers. In golden sunshine, I sat with my father on the saddle of our bicycle, traveling through the former border region of my homeland. The tour also served as a small preparation for our big bike tour next year: In 2026, we want to conquer the Havel Cycle Path – just as last year we mastered the 330-kilometer stretch of the Saale Cycle Path from Saalfeld to the mouth of the Elbe in Barby, a route that runs entirely through the territory of the former GDR.

For me, this tour was far more than just a sporting activity. It was a journey into a past that is both foreign and familiar to me. My father served in the Federal Border Guard. I spent my childhood and youth not far from the border that divided Germany – the border between the two zones was omnipresent in my life due to the proximity and my father's service. The planned Havel Cycle Path also lies almost entirely on the territory of the former GDR, with only a short section running through the territory of the old West.

West and East – A Topography of Memory

West and East – do these categories still exist in our minds? Certainly for some, perhaps even for me, albeit in a sublimated form. The GDR has remained present in my mind, not as a nostalgic reminiscence, but as an object of study. I continue to engage intensively with this vanished world through my literary work. I'm haunted by the question: What was it really like there? How did people feel under this totalitarian regime? Why was there such a depressing silence for so long? What did resistance look like on a small scale, and what motivated people to endure so much in silence?

These questions are by no means antiquated. They reach deep into our present. I observe how the old, which was once a natural part of our society, is visibly crumbling. The spaces for open discourse are dissolving, people are withdrawing – a development reminiscent of the Biedermeier period, the era of retreat into the private sphere after the failed revolutions of the 19th century. Are we experiencing a second Biedermeier period?

The political profiles I knew from earlier decades have softened. In my view, we've long been moving toward a single party with distinct labels. What used to be clearly separated—SPD, CDU, FDP—now resembles a cloud-based data repository: The content is still there, but upon closer inspection, everything seems vague, formless, and without contours—nothing seems concrete, nothing tangible anymore.

A Trip Through the Border Region

So on October 1st, my father and I drove through the former border region, cycling along sections of the old patrol road and venturing into the hinterland, into Thuringia. We ate a Thuringian bratwurst in the market square in Sonneberg. In the former restricted area, we picked an apple from a tree and consumed this "fruit of sin" in bright sunshine and under a blue sky – a conscious act of remembrance of the old days when even picking an apple could be life-threatening.

In many places, you notice that you are no longer in Bavaria, but in the territory of the former GDR. The architecture is different, even the people seem different from those in Franconia. But – as strange as it may sound – I often feel more at home in the former East than in the old West. The people seem more open, more direct, less constrained by conventions.

Is this just my subjective perception? I believe that anyone who has experienced a system like that of the GDR or lived in its immediate vicinity develops a more sensitive radar for political developments. The experience of lack of freedom – even indirectly – sharpens one's awareness of the creeping erosion processes in the present.

A Film as a Wake-Up Call

Instead of the usual book recommendation, today I would like to recommend a film that is thematically perfectly suited to German Unity Day: "The Unrestricted War" from 2025. (Link to the film: https://www.ganjingworld.com/s/KYYDM71jQG)
 

This political thriller is based on true events during the early COVID-19 outbreak and reveals how China's communist regime covered up critical information and silenced whistleblowers – with catastrophic global consequences. The story follows top Canadian virologist Jim Conrad, who is leading a biotech project in China when he is suddenly arrested by secret agents. Forced to steal a sample of his own research from a Canadian high-security laboratory, he finds himself at the center of a rapidly spreading outbreak. As the chaos escalates, he must protect his loved ones and find a way out of the country—before it's too late.

Contemporary China is ruled by a communist regime whose structure is quite comparable to that of East Germany. When I saw the film four weeks ago, I was captivated. It vividly conveys the feeling of life under totalitarian systems—how one feels as an individual when the nooses of oppression and persecution tighten. The film is captivating and thought-provoking, an ideal work for German Unity Day.

The Fragility of Freedom

Perhaps through such cultural reflections we can still recognize that we can still consider ourselves fortunate – at least for the moment – ​​to live in a largely free country. But freedom is not a given. It must be defended, sometimes fought for. I am content not to have lived in the former GDR and grateful that I was spared the communist regime in China.

Nevertheless, I see tendencies that are pulling us worryingly in this direction. China is systematically expanding its influence on other countries – economically, technologically, and ideologically. The methods have become more subtle, but no less effective. Much could be written about this new form of authoritarianism, but that would go beyond the scope of this column.

On November 9, 1989 – the actual day the Berlin Wall fell – I was at the border myself. It was a historic moment: an entire regime collapsed, definitively failed. This failure was inevitable, because no dictatorship can last in the long run if it opposes people's need for freedom.

But history doesn't proceed linearly. The freedom of 1989 is not automatically the freedom of 2025. Every generation must win it anew, redefine it, and defend it anew. The question isn't whether we are freer than the citizens of the GDR back then—the question is whether we are vigilant enough to recognize and counter gradual losses of freedom.

So let's remain vigilant. Watch the film "The Unrestricted War." Perhaps it will wake us up. Perhaps it will remind us that freedom is the most precious commodity a society can possess—and the one most easily lost when we stop fighting for it.

Sapere aude!

S. Noir

The Freytag appears every Friday as a literary column.