>The very thick black dashes mark the international border, correct? Which
>continues between the heavy marks along the thin line.
>
Yes.
> > 1) The smallest enclave, the middle one, consisting of one house and a
> > couple of small pasture fields.
>
>Just to be certain I understand, is that the image "monschau.jpg", with
>the house labelled "Ruckschlag"? Border posts 756 757 758 758.
Yes. A single house and a few small fields. A local road runs along the east
side, with the Vennbahn Belgian railway in front of that and Germany proper
beyond.
The two easternmost stones are easy to find, being in the fencelines along
the road.
The western stnes require some traipsing across fields to get to, and are
not on fencelines, so a touch more tricky to locate, as they were a little
overgrown last year. The stones are perhaps 18"high, perhaps 20cm square,
and have grooves on top that were once painted white, showing the direction
the border takes, so in these 4 cases, there is a white right angle marked
on top of the stonne, with the letters B and D on appropriate sides and the
stone's number. The northwestern stone is in some woods, and the
southwestern one in a boggy field.
The house in the enclave had big gates and a noisy dog, so I didn't knock to
see if the owners spoke English!
>
> > 2) The railway station at Monschau. Note how the road, German, cuts into
>the
> > Belgian station land.
>
>image "monschau2.jpg"? What is the strange 'peninsula' of Belgian
>territory that extends north and west of border post 675K??
>There are a couple of places where it almost seems that German territory
>is above Belgian territory!! As Euperner Strasse passes border post 675J,
>it appears to truncate the aforementioned 'peninsula' but perhaps flies
>over it. But as it flies over the railway between 675K and 674L Euperner
>Strasse is in Belgian territory?
>
The land here slopes up to the north. The road, heading north, makes a curve
to the west to get up the steep cutting caused by cutting out a flat strip
for the station and rail line. The cutting itself is illustrated by the
alternate long and short lines like the graduations on a ruler. So the road
and the cutting are German, but therail line is Belgian. It certianly is a
strange curved peninsula of Belgian land on the NE of the road at 675k. That
stone sits on the fairly flat pastrue land at the edge of the cutting,
overlooking the rail line.
The road is German, except for where it crosses the rail line, so this is
why the road winding down into the station land is German. Presumably the
original cadaster when the German rail line was built included all the land
enclaosed by the boundary stones. In 1920 when the railway was made Belgian,
the roads were excluded except for the immediate parts that crossed the rail
line. In the same image on the western end of the station land you can see a
road going beneath the rail line in a tunnel, and a tad further west another
road that bridges the rai line! Quite what the status of ownership here is I
am not sure. Presumably the sovereignty of the Belgians includes both bridge
and tunnel?
Because the road at the eastern end passes through the station's cadastral
holdings, it was excised from this cadaster and not given to Belgium. This
is the most interesting road corssing on the line because of the intrusionm
of road intruding into the Belgian land around. Elsewhere the road crossings
are not apparent fomr the boundary trace itsefl, as they do not occur at
stations where the Belgian land expands away from the railway track itself.
Perhaps 1km north of this station where the next road corssing is, a small
cross markes the spot where a German school bus was hit by a Belgian train
and some children were killed.
"Gedenket der Imgenbroicher Schulkinder
Heike Mertens
Heinz-Dieter Stoffels
Volker Schmitz
Gestorben beim zusammenstobb des schulbusses mit einem zug am 22.10.1971
Errichtet durch den Verein fur Heimatgescichte Imogenbroich 1993"
Anyone with access to German newspaper archives from the area (or even Bonn
or Aachen) could they check the papers on 22-24/10/71 for further info?
Thanks!
> > 3)the narrow gap between the two northernmost enclaves at Roetgen, where
>the
> > railline swings back into mainland Belgium for just a few metres before
> > swinging out again.
>
>Image "roetgen.jpg"? The exclaves are one with border posts 887 and 888
>near its southern end, that extended off the scanned image to the north,
>and another one with post 884 at the northern corner that extends off
>image south and west?
Yes.
> > 4) The traffic island now on the border of belgium, inside the second of
>the
> > two Roetgen enclaves, that used to be an enclave itself when the Germans
> > owned the road south from here towards Monschau. The island is a parking
> > spot with a prefab cafe. On the southern side of the road is a
>hotel/small
> > supermarket/liquorshop.
>
>image "roetgen2.jpg. Is the traffic island marked with a "P" in a square,
>just northeast of the big "L" in Belgien"? Is it true that there is no
>current exclave of either country on this image?
I coudln't find 813C, but 779-781 exist. There is no longer an enclave here,
although the German land depicted is part of the large second Roetgen
enclave, with the rial line a mile or so to tyhe north of the scan. At one
point all the land up to the rail line was Belgian, with the three roads
that meet that the traffic island being german, and the island itself
Belgian. But this was changed in the 1950s when Belgiaum returned to Germany
several areas of land along their boundary that it had been administering
since 1945.
Because the road heading south fomr the island comes out at Monschau
(Germany) after a brief 2km or so through Belgian forest with no side roads,
theroad, while Belgian, is maintained by Germany and treated as German for
most practical purposes.
But the Fringshaus, being in Belgium but laongside a German road, is
surprisingly busy for its isolated location selling cheap coffee and
chocolate like the shops along the Belgian boundary in Roetgen town, selling
these goods to Germans as Belgian duties on them are cheaper.
BW
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