This border is completely pointless

[@rewboss]

So, apparently my travel tips in this video are based on outdated information. Trains to Kerkrade no longer to from Sittard, but from Maastricht. AFAIK this wasn't the case during the pandemic, so I'm guessing it was that experience that prompted a rethink of the train routes.

[@alexanderpas]

You're excused, Dutch Railways changed some of the routes this month.

[@Marco-dd6wg]

@@rewboss The railway companies in The Netherlands review their routes, stops, frequencies and time-tables periodically. Once a year, I think. If you take a look at the railways-map, then you can say something like "given the railway network, a regular and frequent service to and from (city) and/or (other city) seems likely. For current information, visit (website)".

[@Alrion1704]

verrückt, aber auch cool

[@lukearts2954]

The Netherlands are just like that: pointless. But if you think Kerkrade is crazy, you clearly have not been to Baarle (Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau) where you can find a Dutch enclave inside of a Belgian enclave in the Netherlands, splinters of both countries as small as 5m², houses with boarded up doors to be able to claim taxes in the other country, etc. etc. It makes Kerkrade seem silly and straight forward.

[@Transit_Biker]

During the lockdowns & travel restrictions*. Pandemic still ongoing. Cool video, thanks!

[@dutchgamer842]

You forgot, in Germany stores are closed on Sunday and stores are open in the Netherlands on Sunday

[@TheLikeys]

It must feel so good when you forget to buy some eggs or something, so you go and get them from the Dutch shop across town on a Sunday.

[@JohnRNewAccountNumber3]

​@@TheLikeys it's just often convenient to be on a border in general. There's bound to be something that's cheaper across the border than it is where you are. With exceptions, of course.

[@Sacto1654]

It gets even more fun when you find out you can buy fireworks in the Dutch area but not in the Belgian area of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog.

[@Gliese380]

@@Sacto1654 It's the other way around, you can buy all kinds of fireworks in Belgium and in the Belgian enclave of Baarle-Hertog, but not in the Netherlands (incl. Baarle-Nassau). Most fireworks are illegal in NL, not in BE. Just this last week there were several news reports of Dutch people crossing the border en masse to buy fireworks in Belgium (incl. Baarle-Hertog), as they do every year.

[@silentwilly2983]

@@JohnRNewAccountNumber3 Convenient? Not really, sure being near a border can have advantages, but it is not convenient. I remember a time I always carried at least 2 and much of the time 3 different currencies in my wallet. I remember being turned away at the border because my parent had forgotten the passports. I remember having to make a significant detour because not having the paperwork to take a cross border shortcut. Convenient is when borders become meaningless and effectively disappear.

[@wowzaabean]

rewboss' slow but impeding transformation into Germany-centred Tom Scott is beginning. Edit: the intro is really good

[@DubioserKerl]

Every country needs their own Tom Scott

[@TheYoutubeUser69]

And they have to be British​@@DubioserKerl

[@pitrzer]

And we're all here for it

[@jonjohnson2844]

I don't think anyone will beat Tom Scott...travelling to somewhere like Canada to make a 3 minute video.

[@andreasu.3546]

@@jonjohnson2844 I's almost a year since he left youtube. I do miss his videos.

[@EricBrianArchiv]

Im from Herzogenrath, i identify as German but I feel home on both sides of the border (also in the german part of Belgium that is close by). We cross the border on an almost daily basis for work, hobbies and grocery shopping, I have friends and even ancestors on both sides. I don’t really speak more than a few words in Dutch but some of them speak German and we all speak English. I really hope this border will stay open for ever. Really good video 👍🏼

[@maschinenorganismus]

I am also from the region. I feel European and identify as one.

[@tjallingdalheuvel126]

In identify as me. Nationality is just a tag. Identifying as European lol. Associate yourself with what you want. Silly to me. What is a European and how does that identify you? What does that say about you? To me it says nothing of interest about you.

[@OenopionOenopion]

@tjallingdalheuvel126 160 years ago, people identified as Virginians, Pennsylvanians, Georgians, or Ohians. But they came to see that they were all Americans, and it has been generations since anyone seriously took their state residence as meaningful. The same process is at hand in Europe, as a pan-European identity is forming. In any event, you don’t sound particularly thoughtful about issues of identity.

[@silentwilly2983]

@tjallingdalheuvel126 What does it say about people if they deny their citizenship? Or identify as German, Dutch, French? I've an EU passport, I'm an EU citizen. It is a simple factual statement. Doesn't say anything about how strong that identity is, it also doesn't add or detract anything from the fact that I've a shitload of other identities. There is only one issue that I have with identifying as European, and actually it is not really with identifying as European, it is more with how the term European is more and more perceived. European becomes more and more equivalent to EU in the same way that American is often perceived as equivalent to USA while in reality European and American are much broader than the association with the respective political entities.

[@13tuyuti]

I'd imagine that the local dialects on both sides of the border would be to a large extent mutually intelligible. In the Netherlands Kerkrade is known for having a very strong dialect that even people fron other parts of the province of Limburg have trouble understanding.

[@prometheus23c]

So glad KZbin suggested this video. I had no idea that Herzogenrath / Kerkrade was a thing, but I am fascinated both by the historic research, the really good storytelling and the somewhat quirky vibe of this video. Subscribed!

[@ManuProduktions]

We have quite some strange border things going on in this region. A little bit to the south, there is also a road which is part of Belgium but it cuts straight through Germany, so both sides of the road are german.

[@rewboss]

That'll be the road from Aachen to Monschau, right?

[@ManuProduktions]

@@rewboss Exactly :) There is a nice Tom Scott video about it.

[@Goldfire-tt3dv]

​@@ManuProduktions Rewboss covered the Vennbahn in his Monschau video in 2018.

[@dutchman7623]

There was even a Dutch road through Selfkant, from NL to NL with no D entrees or exits. Turned over to Germany... a little later than the rest of Selfkant.

[@geraldmarek4867]

Klasse, Andrew. Könnte mal ein Ausflugsziel werden.

[@JanHouben]

On e every four years, Kerkrade is home to the 'World Music Contest', one of the biggest international competitions for amateur marching bands, wind bands and brass bands, with thousands of musicians from all over Europe (and the rest of the world) participating. I participated already 7 times myself, so I know the town quite well by now 😊

[@rogink]

If it's a Sunday, make sure to keep to the German side! Actually I'd have thought the ban on playing music on Sundays would in Germany.

[@duncanbryson1167]

What do you play?

[@nlpnt]

There's something like this near me, the Haskell Library and Opera House in Derby Line, Vermont (USA) and Stansted, Quebec (Canada) was deliberately built over the border. You can use the whole building but have to leave on the side you came in on. When the border was shut during covid they held outdoor family reunions on the lawns.

[@ChristopherSobieniak]

At least they remember their history.

[@alexandermalinowski4277]

@@nlpnt However, since the patriotic act the cross border activities on UsA-Canada border are severely limited.

[@BillGreenAZ]

I remember one time that this venue was hoping to host a meeting of the Beatles. The story went that one or more of the Beatles was not able to enter either the US or Canada due to drug use. This house would allow them to stay on the other side of the border.

[@Habib_Osman]

Fascinating! thanks for sharing

[@jvaneck8991]

That part of the world has been turned upside-down with the advent of Barack Obama, a US President with defined fascist tendencies, who promptly appointed Janet Napolitano as the Director of Homeland Security; she rapidly instituted the construction of 12-foot-high steel fence barricades through the town of Derby Line, shutting off the Canadian side from the US side. That this caused and continues to cause massive problems in these border communities becomes apparentwhen noting that these small towns ahve all-volunteer fire and ambulance services; a fire breaks out on the Canadian side (as happened at lac Megantic) and the American volunteers come running with their man and fire trucks, and of course vice-versa. When Napolitano and Obama built steel barricades across the border, that mutual aid disrupted, and now you are on your own if your house is on fire. If lucky, the locals might save the foundation. Janet Napolitano is probably the single most poisonous woman on the face of the planet. She was Governor of Arizona and was so thick-headed and stubborn that she could not get along with anyhbody, ultimately issuing some 180 vetoes of proposed legislation, vastly more by over 300% than any other governor. Obama appointed her to the sensitive position of Homeland Security as political salve, caring not of the disastrouseffects of her poisonous personality on small border towns. When you vote for some egotistical guy like Barack, well you end up with some poisonous woman like Napolitano. All your fault, people.

[@omikrondraconis5708]

You have been right around the corner when you were filming this. Here, we sometimes joke that taking a wrong turn might end us up in another country and we won't even be sure which one. At the Dreiländerpunkt one can even stand in three countries at the same time. Also, great fun for kids, and a good opportunity to explain the benefits of the Schengen area to them.

[@scarakatorza]

Happenend to me when I was taking a bus in Aachen. I missed my stop and all of a sudden I was in Belgium! 😅

[@rafaelkakuva751]

​@@scarakatorza😂😂😂😂😂😂❤

[@nobbel65]

@@scarakatorza, line 14 or 24? On one of the lines you would have been a fare dodger after crossing the border, on the other line you wouldn't.

[@WhaTT20]

I spent my early childhood in Kerkrade before moving to Germany at the age of six. Seeing the various places, streets, and paths depicted in your video makes me very nostalgic. I greatly appreciate this video not only for the fascinating history of my former hometown but also for the memories it brought back. Thanks a lot.

[@Eurobazz]

A great video Andrew. I live close by in Valkenburg, NL and I often go to Herzogenrath to shop at Kaufland. You mentioned quite a few facts I was unaware of, so thanks. During the pandemic there were times when the Dutch and German buses driving along Nieuwstraat/Neustraße had different facemask wearing rules which made it interesting when the passenger was on either an ASEAG (DE) bus or an Arriva (NL) bus and driving on which side of the border. So far the soft introduction of border controls hasn't severely impacted cross-border travel. Let's see what happens!

[@rewboss]

We had different mask mandates within Germany. I live in Bavaria near the border with Hesse, which was fun on the train.

[@peetieyou]

Ah yes, Kaufland ! This reminds me of a Kaufland in Waldshut just across the Rhein River from Switzerland. Go there any weekend and check the license plates on the cars parked there. Probably 90% of them are from Switzerland. The prices are so much better in Germany, and even lower when the Swiss apply to have their purchases detaxed.

[@tanteedelgard1921]

I'm from Germany but I like to watch your videos because many facts are unknown to me. "Seriously - because of your clearly spoken English I am able to refresh my English and I am really greatful for that. I would like to see AND to hear much more videos! 🙂

[@i75gg]

I love it when people on KZbin talk about the region around Limburg, where I grew up. Amazing video!

[@KlaustoFausto]

The production quality on this one is definitely up a notch! I found myself captivated all the way through. Good job, keep it coming 💪

[@DaneeBound]

9:24 Adjusted for inflation, that would be €45 (give or take). To put that into context: in 2024, the minimum fare evasion fine is €60 in Germany and €50 in the Netherlands.

[@rewboss]

I wonder, though, how often people actually were fined. I can't imagine it would have been worth all the paperwork.

[@DaneeBound]

@@rewboss Wouldn't have been that much more hassle than dealing with fare evaders. I did bring that up for a reason.

[@andrewlaurence8274]

Are the gender-neutral restrooms located right on the line?

[@maschinenorganismus]

@@andrewlaurence8274 all over Europe there are no gendered restrooms on the trains, they were gender neutral since the beginning.is this a joke? Btw I am at Hamburg atm and there is the 38C3, a humongous large Hacker Congress. All bathrooms are gender neutral here too. Never caused a problem in over 10 years.

[@DaneeBound]

@@andrewlaurence8274 If there was a unisex lavatory at this place, then the separate men's and women's rest-rooms would be incredibly redundant. :P

[@AMOGLES99]

There is on the Swiss-German border a place called Büsingen which is actually a tiny enclave of Germany surrounded by Switzerland. There are several streets that have houses in both countries, and the border randomly switches across the street several times. There is one pub even in which the bar is in one country but the tables in another and if a pub fight breaks out and you call the police, the police will ask which part of the building they are fighting in. There is also a hotel where you can choose between having a room in Switzerland or in Germany. Customs and border officially have long ago given up trying to enforce the border and all of Büsingen is considered Swiss from a customs and excise perspective. They also have a Swiss postal code and use Swiss currency.

[@Terrorrai1]

Try Baarle-Nassau for the even more mind-bogling version of this between The Netherlands and Belgium.

[@ingo_8628]

Thats crazy, good luck to everybody who wants to try to force some kind of borderstuff there.

[@NQR-9000]

​​@@ingo_8628My very own interpretation of history is that Belgium and the Netherlands had to create BeNeLux just to solve the problem of Baarle-Nassau, and the whole creation of the EU just follows from that 😅

[@f.g.9466]

What even is Belgium? Why is Belgium? When is Belgium (a country)? Probably the least qualified concept to be called a country.

[@tamfang]

arguably Baarle-Hertog is the weirder one

[@Sacto1654]

Or that weird Italian enclave at Lake Lugano in the south end of Switzerland. Interestingly, you still see remnants of the pre-Schengen days all over Europe: for example the border checkpoints on the Bernina Pass road just north of Tirano in Italy and the border checkpoint between France and Italy just east of Monaco on the seashore road.

[@Ezra-v7p]

"Have you ever committed a crime?" "I gave my neighbors across the street a bag of coffee!"

[@soundscape26]

My knowledge of Kerkrade comes from football, the city's football club is colloquially known as Roda. Great video, love this kind of content.

[@matthewbrotman2907]

Roda JC had a long run in the Dutch top flight, but was relegated in 2019 and is now in the second tier.

[@DSBMAC13]

It's kinda funny you uploaded this video a few hours before I just casually drove down this road :D I also frequently visit that shop shown at 8:03 when I visit my mother who just lives one street away from that border crossing. Funny side fact: In germany you are allowed to drive a bus with 18, when you are in a certain apprenticeship, usually in the EU you are allowed to drive a bus with 21. Those young german bus drivers are not allowed to drive on the shown line 54 because when you go back to Aachen, you are driving on the dutch side of the road - and they don't accept this apprenticeship. :D

[@BigNat3000]

This is an absolutely fascinating video and really well written and presented - the quality of your channel keeps getting better and it’s great to see!

[@torspedia]

As someone who likes content about odd border situations, I've added this to my 'places to visit' list. 🙂

[@rhbb8796]

Got this randomly recommended, nice to see you still producing videos! Remember watching you back in 2008 or so

[@MeneerEnMevrouwTrein]

NETHERLANDS MENTIONED! 16:16 One travel tip I would like to add: There is a very cheap dayticket for all trains and busses in the Eurode region and all train connections you mentioned: The Euregio ticket ;)

[@wr1120]

You might want to investigate an even more messy border in The Netherlands located in the village Baarle. It's a mess of sixteen small Belgian enclaves in The Netherlands and seven Dutch enclaves in Belgium. The split areas are called Baarle -Nassau and Baarle -Hertog. It's quite a fascinating story how this came into existance and the locals vehemently opposed any action to fix the situation for ages.

[@derin111]

Some of the villages in the Pyrenees are like this with a border between Spain and France. A difference there is that the local inhabitants speak neither Spanish nor French to each other but their own common dialects of Basque.

[@scarakatorza]

Danke für dieses Video! Es wurde mir vorgeschlagen und ich musste es ansehen als ich den Ort auf dem Thumbnail erkannt habe. Ich habe von 2018-2020 in Heerlen und später Kerkrade gewohnt. Es ist interessant und schön, diesen Ort so überraschend wieder zu sehen. 😄❤️

[@hochkulturensohn]

I have lived about 10 minutes from the Herzogenrath-Kerkrade border for over 20 years an still live here today. As a child, I always thought Kerkrade was just another part of my city because we regularly went shopping there and the Dutch people seemed to speak flawless German. (In my perception, most Germans don’t speak a word of Dutch) Very interesting video, i love watching stranger people talk about my hood. Best regards from the Aachen border region! Keep up the good work! (sry my english isnt the yellow from the egg)

[@alexandermalinowski4277]

Normal Dutch can’t speak German without very strong accent.

[@franziska1007]

Haben die deutsch sprechenden Niederländer dann auch wesentlich häufiger direkt geduzt? Hatte die Erfahrung bisher bei ein paar deutsch sprechenden, niederländischen Kunden die halt selbstverständlich geduzt haben, woran ich mich dann im ersten Moment erst gewöhnen musste (man hat ja in dem Kontext seine sprachlichen Angewohnheiten). Finde das faszinierend :D

[@fosterfuchs]

"yellow from the egg" - I love it! I'm originally from Germany and have been living in the U.S. for almost 40 years. Using German expressions literally in English is a favorite among us German expats. Such as "it's me sausage" or "I believe I spider". 😂😂😂

[@AndreasSuchanek-s4p]

This is very well produced, quite informative and entertaining . Thank you very much. And have a nice and successfull year 2025. Greatings from Hilden near the border to Benrath(Benrode)-Düsseldorf

[@simivb]

You visited my hometown!!! I can't believe it :D

[@Kenghym]

As someone who commutes from übach to aachen daily for work... heck yes, never expected our little corner of germany to be the star of a yt video! So many spots where we could have bumped into him. What a funny thought

[@jb31842]

Hometowns?

[@YesOkayButWhy]

You just became one of my favourite KZbinrs of this type in the space of about two videos. So, well done!

[@IndigoJo]

I was on a German exchange in 1992, just before Schengen, and we took a trip to Aachen which is just inside Germany and the border basically passes just to the west of the city limits. I took the bus that said "Vaals-Grenze" on the front and walked straight across the border. Stayed for a few minutes in Vaals then walked back and took the bus back into town. Can't remember if I did or didn't have my passport; I was 15 and I expect that either my teacher or the exchange family had it. But you just walked straight across and back. There are lots of towns on the borders between Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium where the border passes right through a town and mostly you walk straight through. (The Belgian border was not that far away either, but too far to justify the walk.)

[@SeverityOne]

The point where the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium meet is on top of a hill, the 'Vaalserberg'. 'Berg' is the Dutch word for mountain, and considering how flat the rest of the country is, it might as well be considered to be a mountain, even though it's only just over 300 metres high.

[@acmenipponair]

When you were fifteen you most likely didn't had your passport on you, because you only get a passport/Personal ID card when you are 16. That's also the reason why the border patrol couldn't check on the children - the passports were at their parents places.

[@thelvadam2884]

@@SeverityOne "Berg" comes from german and means "mountain" Dutch uses the same word as its very close to german ( aka its a offspring if you wanna call that idk a better term at 5 am in the morning) , where that word originally came from.

[@Torchedini]

​@@thelvadam2884technically German and Dutch come from Diets. And Dutch is closer to Diets. But berg is just a shared word with same meaning.

[@SeverityOne]

@@thelvadam2884 It comes from proto-Germanic, and before that, Indo-European. The point is more that everything under 500 metres is a hill, 'heuvel' in Dutch, and 'Hügel' in German.

[@jerryweirdspeed]

Dude! Ich hoffe Du hattest auch nen schönen Urlaub! Das is soo spannend was Du da ausgräbst!

[@jannetteberends8730]

There’s also a zoo in Kerkrade. I know, because I saw a video last week about the 10 best zoos in Europe. It was number 10 on the list. The stories about the smuggling really made me grin.

[@DerAlex86]

There are more mind-boggling stories about smuggling in that area. Herzogenrath is just north of Aachen - and just south of Aachen, there's Schmidt, which's church was completely destroyed during the Battle of Hürtgenwald. Its priest gave only lightly concealed blessings to the smugglers ("those working in the evening trade"), the whole church was rebuilt largely on donations of smuggler profits, so it got nicknamed "St. Mokka". Even farther to the North, near Kleve, there is the township of Elten, which returned from the Netherlands to Germany in 1963 in what is called the "Eltener Butternacht" (Elten butter night): In the evening before the announced border adjustment, commercial vehicles from all over Germany and the Netherlands would bring tariffed goods from the Netherlands (most notably butter) into Elten and park there for the night. In the morning, they would then proceed to their destination without paying the tariffs, because by now they were already in Germany. As the locals say: "The goods weren't smuggled across the border, the border was smuggled across the goods."

[@raoulherbord1345]

hey rewboss, I was born to a german dad and a dutch mom in Aachen, two weeks after my birth we moved to kerkrade. seeing this made me smile all the ways trough. From the abbi where i went to school for one year because my secondary school was located there to the mine entrance where my grandfather used to work when he was little.

[@NaomiClareNL]

There is a similar situation in Dinxperlo (NL) and Süderwick (D). Dinxperlo is in the province of Gelderland and Süderwick is in Münsterlands / NRW.

[@HenriBourkel]

Here is a tip for another weird border situation in the region: At the border between the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg and the Belgian province of Luxembourg is the town of Rombach-Martelange, as it is called by the Belgians. Its name in the Luxembourgish language is Marteléng. The border goes straight through the town and apparently through a restaurant and pub where in the same room, some tables are located in Luxembourg, and some others in Belgium. At the time when Belgium had much tighter "last orders, please"-rules, people would simply get up and move to the Luxembourgish side of the room before the Belgian police arrived to check on them 😂.

[@pgScorpio]

Maybe you should do a video about Baarle-Nassau/Baarle-Hertog near the Dutch-Belgium border, which have even more ridiculous borders going right through buildings, shops, horeca, etc. in several places.

[@MichaelBurggraf-gm8vl]

Thank you very much for this interesting glimpse of border peculiarities around Germany. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you!

[@Bayerwaldler]

Interessantes Video!

[@rewboss]

Thank you. :)

[@Bayerwaldler]

@ I hope I set that up correctly

[@rewboss]

@@Bayerwaldler It's showing up as a Super Thanks, so it must have gone through, yes. Thanks again.

[@harry225]

Nice little video! I actually learned something new about my own country! (The Netherlands)

[@liamw-89]

"German Tom Scott isn't real, he can't hurt you" German Tom Scott:

[@strupp1]

Love this video! A friend of mine grew up there and I visited a while ago. Cool to get more insight about a place I‘ve been to before

[@EElgar1857]

Fascinating, and very well done! 😁

[@michaelclark737]

I really enjoyed this, Andrew. Glad you're getting out of the house more with your videos.

[@maasro]

14:52 Off course, in 1817, there was no railway station yet. The first railway in this area was only built some 25 years later and it took ten more for the railroad from Aachen to actually reach Herzogenrath.

[@tonyharpur8383]

I love the often quirky videos you make! Bravo!

[@rolandscales9380]

I'm reminded of the pub in Spike Milligan's "Puckoon", where two square feet of the public bar are technically in Ulster, where drinks are thirty per-cent cheaper than in the Irish Free State, resulting in customers scrambling to get into those two square feet.

[@CoPoint]

Which begs the question: Can you buy a drink there, and then sit down with your glass in the rest of the pub, or do you have to sit on the one bar stool that fits into those two square feet, getting dragged off of it as soon as your glass is empty - "Hey dude, make room, now it's *my* turn!" 😄?

[@simon3.16]

First clip I have seen and loved it. Very interesting and well researched and presented - brilliant!

[@dennisverweij4817]

As of this month, the trains serving Kerkrade have changed. It is now a stop-train that comes in from Maastricht. Meanwhile, the train serving Herzogenrath goes through Maastricht and into Belgium to Liege-Guillemins. Well, at least half the trains terminate at Maastricht, and the other half terminate in Liege. And seeing that Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands all have different electrification standards, having one train to serve all three is not an easy task, and one I can imagine that will be fraught with issues.

[@nobbel65]

The problems with the electricity are smaller than the problems with the different train security systems. When the train was tested it just blocked in Aachen Central Station.

[@wtflmaa7842]

Different power for electrical trains in different countries is not really a problem any longer. Nowadays there are plenty of multi-power locomotives where the engineer can just flip a switch while cruising and a few seconds later the locomotive will happily use the other power.

[@julianbryant5133]

Great video! I stayed on a campsite near Vaals, just to the south. The best walking route into town was over a small brook into Germany, about 500m up the road and across another bridge into NL. The bus stop had buses from three countries; which I realised halfway through watching included Kerkrode. At the Dreilandenpunt, apparently there was once four countries meeting there after WWI: the country of Moresnet/Calamine, which was little more than large zinc mine that no-one could agree to whom it belonged, also met NL/DE/BE at the same place. Now there's a missing history video!

[@karstenwinkler6923]

Great video as always ❤

[@treinenliefde]

Fun to see this region. I've ridden the Miljoenenlijn multiple times and am actually thinking of going there again tomorrow, seeing as they're (it seems like) the only heritage railway running on the 31st of december.

[@ryn_nirgendwo8622]

thank you, this was really informative and entertaining

[@charrogate]

Dankeschön. Having visited the 🇳🇱 🇩🇪 towns, you have revealed more fascinating stuff than was realised - shall revisit with your useful guidance 👍

[@verybighomer]

"Sanity prevailed". I miss those times.

[@thelvadam2884]

be the change you want to see in the world !

[@cthoadmin7458]

I wish it had for Brexit.

[@knrdvmmlbkkn]

""Sanity prevailed". I miss those times." So do I. But things are - at last - looking up now.

[@barmalini]

Dankjewel, this is really interesting story about the history of both nations.

[@Spacemongerr]

Interesting. In Norway there are many placenames ending in -rød, -rud or -røed, also meaning "clearing".

[@acmenipponair]

It's old germanic, so you find this similarity in whole of middle and north Europe.

[@dargordtq5882]

Very cool to watch and informing as well. Schön gemacht! I did see video's about this part of my border before, but this is the best for me personally. The Germans and Dutch share another town further north as well, Dinxperlo/Suderwick not too far from Bocholt in Nordrhein-Westfalen.

[@fsinjin60]

About 45 years ago visiting Ubach Palenberg, we crossed the Nederland border to go to Aachen. The best route from western Ubach to Aachen went through the Dutch town. Since this was pre-Schengen, I wanted to get my Passport stamped. We stopped at the customs house that had just waved us through and the agent could not find a current customs stamp and had to modify the last digit of the year because he hadn't updated it for the new year. This WAS in January but already 4 days into 1988. He modified the 1987's 7 into an 8 by pen. I didn't realize until I saw the customs station 7:54, this is exactly here I was.

[@samuyilhyde1318]

That former customs station is at the end of the Eygelshovener Straße in Herzogenrath, about 5-6km away from Übach-Palenberg. Until a few years ago, it was also possible to drive through by car. Unfortunately the road is now structurally blocked for cars, walking and cycling through is still allowed.

[@alexsteb]

I love the bilingual sign designs in the Eurode center. Poli(zei/tie), Gren(z/s)info

[@janinewetzler5037]

Considering I am Canadian, I will head to our longest border with the U.S. and visit some border towns along it. During the pandemic, a park in British Columbia, with an arch and gate on the border had residents from both countries meeting in the middle of the park and sitting at picnic tables to meet face to face, with about 3 foot distances

[@Zoroff74]

Sweden and Finland have a similar but less built-in version with Haparanda & Tornio having grown together across our river border for many decades of Nordic open border policy.

[@robertlewis8295]

In 1986 I was in an exchange program and I spent 3 weeks with the family of a German student that had stayed with my family the previous year. He lived in Grenzach-Wyhlen, near Basel Switzerland, right against the small area where the Swiss border crosses the Rhine. Went for a few bike rides where we went past the markers and an empty check post that marked the border. When we crossed the border near the town itself I would get my passport stamped when I crossed near the railroad tracks. That was a really great time.

[@Raider_MXD]

Fascinating video, many thanks

[@starstencahl8985]

When we were 17 we went to Herzogenrath on our bikes (~50km) because the local Mediamarkt was the only one that had a camera lens in stock we needed. I didn’t know about it at the time but when we arrived the border situation absolutely fascinated me. After getting our lens, we of course went over to the dutch side to get some tasty Vla from the supermarket, which isn’t available in germany

[@maarten.dejong]

In the Netherlands, you are always required to have an identity card on your person when leaving your domicile. So every Dutch person, leaving his or her residence, and entering the office building discussed, should have a valid ID that also allows them to cross a Schengen border. Not sure about the Germans in the office building.

[@thiloreichelt4199]

Germany has no similar ID law. You are required to posess a valid ID (in theory you can be fined if not), but you can not be fined for leaving it at home.

[@telocho]

You are NOT required to carry an id in the Netherlands, but you are required to identify yourself On Demand to officials. The effect is the same, but there is a slight difference: a must carry law was associated to much with ww2 occupation, so they wanted to use a different way to word it.

[@franziska1007]

@@thiloreichelt4199 I guess most people working there just carry it out of habit in their wallets anyway. Almost everyone I know that takes their wallet to their job and out and about has their Perso on them anyway and you have to have your drivers license when driving (and if you have a personalized subscription train ticket, you also usually need some kind of official photo ID for that to be valid) Expect when people go partying (in fear of it getting stolen/lost especially once they're old enough not to need to ID) or go somewhere where they wouldnt take their wallet (on a jog or other sports activities, walking the dog ... ), it's probably not a big issue for the people working or living there anyway :D

[@Bruce-1956]

That is a EU rule, not Dutch.

[@alexandersalter6686]

Very interesting! I love border oddities like this and hope you make some similar videos in the future!

[@stennostenno1346]

dramatic intro, love it

[@mandiejaviwilliams3603]

Great Video! Thank you so much! Keep up the content! 🙂

[@MyRegardsToTheDodo]

Coffee smuggling in that era was generally insane after World War 2. In the relatively nearby town of Schmidt the pastor basically blessed the smugglers and they donated money for rebuilding the completely destroyed church. The smugglers used stolen military vehicles that didn't even stop when shot at and faster cars, that were able to outdrive the border patrols, until the border patrols got two Porsche cars, driven by actual race drivers (the so-called "Besenporsche", named after the metal rakes they had on their front ends to push away the caltrops the smugglers used to throw). It was also quite dangerous, because both sides were armed and atleast 31 smugglers and 2 border patrol officers were killed during the five years between 1948 (when the D-Mark was released) and 1953 (when the German government lowered the coffee tax).

[@marcokrueger3399]

I'm glad smuggling isn't that brutal anymore! Could have ended badly when we took a trip to the coffee shop in Heerlen

[@nobbel65]

The church in Nideggen-Schmidt is also called "St. Mokka" because it was (re)built with help of the coffee smugglers.

[@nobbel65]

@@marcokrueger3399, the Dutch coffee shops aren't really famous for their coffee but for other things. ;-)

[@marcokrueger3399]

@@nobbel65 We haven't smuggled coffee, that I can tell you :D

[@CanalExclave]

What a great video! I love borderds and never heard of it. Thank you!

[@Jlov1892]

At another part along the German-Dutch border, in Elten, there is also an interesting story about smuggling called the 'Eltener Butternacht'. It's an interesting story to read.

[@fryfrysk]

Elten ( incl.70 km2 ) became dutch in 1949 as compensation after WWII as part of a wider compensation program. After negotiations, Elten was sold by NL to Germany in 1963 for 280 mio DM (today' approx 1.1 to 1.2 billion euro ) The story of the Elterner Butternacht is directly related to this transfer in 1963

[@db8989]

Thanks for this great video. I am living in this region and could learn many interesting facts from this video!

[@QALibrary]

In Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland there are a lot of buildings including farmhouses - different parts of the house will be in different counties - since the 2016 Brexit vote a lot of Brexit people do not understand or want to understand what this means and also add in the Good Friday Agreement.

[@anglaismoyen]

We don't need the EU to have the CTA.

[@helenjohnston3178]

​@anglaismoyen As Ireland is a member of the EU and UK is not, the UK & Ireland can't have a common trade area anymore. Either UK needed to stay in the EC, Ireland leave the EU or a customs border somewhere (Irish Sea or on land). Stop talking nonsense. Westminster doesn't care for Ulster one jot and put the border down the Irish Sea. I'm sorry for loyalist, but your loyalty is no longer valued in London.

[@snithereens]

I'm so sorry, that you have been lied to regarding Brexit by BJ, Jacob and Nigel. Divide et impera is the trick that's been performed on you. Europe needs to overcome division to withstand outside powers. We need Britain back!

[@hugocarter1013]

@@helenjohnston3178CTA is the common travel area, which is independent of the EU and still exists today.

[@lockdownlover73]

@hugocarter1013 Until one day the UK scraps it. Never say Never.

[@KennethTanFotografie]

Spot-on documentary. Well narrated. From a 1966 boy from Eygelshoven.

[@takpuilo9776]

Rare towns from the Rewboss channel once again! If the main train station is on the German side, does it mean the locals from the Dutch side would have to buy both countries' regional tickets? Or there's a one fixed price that covers this area? (sorry if it's a dumb question

[@rewboss]

I don't know how the local ticketing systems work, but there were Dutch ticket machines at the station.

[@Panzerairlines]

@@rewboss Most of the time, the first railway station in another country can be used with a "local" a.k.a. Dutch ticket. Depending on the transport company.

[@ManuProduktions]

It's kind of a hybrid. The dutch tickets are also valid in Germany if you use the train which crosses the border. If you only ride through Germany, you use german tickets and vice versa. If you want to go further in the border region there is an special ticket for that, which is valid in all countries (also Belgium). In general the international cooperation works quite well regarding tickets. For example, students of the RWTH Aachen university can use their student ticket also in the Netherlands thanks to a special agreement.

[@MartinBrenner]

You can use the Dutch Arriva train with an OV chipkaart all the way to Aachen and there are checkin/checkout terminals at all German stations from Herzogenrath to Aachen, as well as ticket machines, where you can recharge the travel card. So locals from the Dutch side can just use their travel card to travel to Herzogenrath and Aachen. And by the way, the train continues beyond Maastricht to Liege (unless there is a driver shortage which unfortunately happens quite often at the moment), making this a three country train, but ticketing gets kinda messy when you cross over to Belgium and you need an international train ticket in this case.

[@Quark0611]

And on the Dutch side, there are German ticket machines, that sell German tickets as from Heerlen. Even NRW tickets! And there's Kerkrade Centrum, which is Dutch. So basically, Herzogenrath has decent connections to both Germany (Aachen Hbf and Mönchengladbach Hbf) and the Netherlands (Heerlen)! On both fares between Heerlen and Aachen Hbf.

[@MrGreatplum]

This is very interesting, thanks for sharing! Reminiscent of a Tim traveller video. Happy new year to you!

[@vlastimilstribrny4598]

How to spot the border between Germany and the Netherlands? On one side of the street, there is een fietspad and on the other is kein Fahrradweg.

[@marcokrueger3399]

It sounds a bit like a joke until you actually experience it. Yeah, the difference is wild (and hopefully soon gone). You can also perfectly see that in Vaals(erquartier)

[@vlastimilstribrny4598]

@ The difference is gone soon? You mean they will remove the cycle paths in the Netherlands? That sounds like another Prime Minister of the Netherlands is going to be eaten. 😂 No, just joking. But I don't really care, since I don't ride a bike, to be honest. 😂 I just noticed it.

[@marcokrueger3399]

@@vlastimilstribrny4598 😂😂😂 Fortunately for the health of the prime minister of the netherlands, I mean that Germany builds proper Fahrradwege. Aachen is doing a lot, and as a (newly discovered) cyclist, I like it a lot. (I use a bicycle because driving a car in Aachen is so bad with all the construction sites... And I can't afford to lose my parking spot haha)

[@vlastimilstribrny4598]

@ Ahh, I see you are the programtic type of cyslist! I respect that. Sadly we don't have many of those here. It's usually the entitled type of cyclists, who lobby for having cycle paths absolutely everywhere, (and when they build it they end up using regular roads or not cycling at all) pressing it on absolutely everyone and demanding absolute priority, because it's their God-given right and privilege.

[@stevegodsell]

What a great video, so glad it popped up.

[@kreuner11]

The Schengen agreement could have been very weel been called the Kerkrade agreement if things went a little differently

[@bele13]

@@kreuner11 Well, Schengen actually isn't all that far from Rode. It is, however, exactly at the border of three of the five initial signatories of the agreement. Taking that as a reference, it's more likely that it would have been called Vaals or Gemmenich or Aachen (not as likely because there already is a number of treaties named after it) or Ouren. The one thing that Schengen had going for it was the river Mosel, which is a condominium of Luxembourg and Germany where it makes up the border between the two, and has been for more than 200 years. Because the agreement was actually signed on a boat on the river, it was signed in both Luxembourg and Germany.

[@andypre1667]

@@bele13 I wouldn't say that 3 hours by car (or approx. 230 km on the most direct route) "isn't all that far".

[@bele13]

@@andypre1667 When looking at the Schengen area as a whole, it is. Roughly 1/15 of the distance from the northernmost (accessible) point to the southernmost one, or from the westernmost one to the easternmost one.

[@andrewrobinson2565]

Excellent 👌. I've always been mesmerised by land borders, and how life differs on either side +1👍.

[@catelyte]

as always: großartig!

[@EricDankbaar]

Thanks for this informative video and all the work you did to realize it.

[@CLipka2373]

This seems to be the perfect setting for this smuggler anecdote: There was this older guard posted at the German-Dutch border, who got suspicious of that one young guy who crossed the border every other day on a bike, always at the same time, and always with pack bags full of... sand?! The guard searched the pack bags every time, sifting through all the sand, but found nothing. One day he even went so far as to take a sample of the sand, and convinced his superiors to have the sand analyzed in an expensive laboratory, convinced that there must be _something_ fishy going on. But even the laboratory found nothing odd about it - it was just plain sand. They could even tell him the exact the beach it came from. But that was it. And sand was not illegal to transport - there weren't even any tariffs on it. Not in such small quantitites anyway. The guard tried to involve the cyclist into conversations; a bit of small talk here, some innocent chat there, in hopes to learn anything about those bags and the sand. But the chap never let anything slip. Over time, he actually grew quite fond of the young man, and a bit proud of him, too, like a father would. Whatever illegal things that chap was up to, the guard became convinced he sure hurt nobody. And the young man was admirably good at covering it up. Finally, there came the day the border guard would retire. And again, that chap on the bike came by, bags full of sand. The guard told him: "Look, we both know you're up to _something_, with those saddle bags full of sand. Today is my last day on duty. Please, I _have_ to know what this is all about - curiousity would kill me otherwise. I promise - and you know I'll keep that promise - that I won't snitch on you. So, please tell me - what _are_ you smuggling?" The young chap grinned a broad grin. "Bicycles", he said. "All the time, I've been smuggling - bikes."

[@bennorton4831]

This video is so very well-made!

[@rainerzufall42]

Another interesting rewboss video...

[@scracker842]

excellent report. thank you.

[@riton349]

8:40 The Dutch: "We gonna build a great fence and the Krauts gonna pay for it"

[@ericdpeerik3928]

Well, they did once LITERALLY invade 😂

[@Mishima505]

Next time visit the town of Baarle-Hertog where you have Belgian enclaves in the middle of a Dutch town

[@hirsch4155]

That’s too exhausting for the brain

[@13tuyuti]

@@Mishima505 and in some of those enclaves there's even tinier Dutch enclaves.

[@Mishima505]

@ like Russian dolls, there’s an even tinier bit of Belgium in the Netherlands in Belgium in the Netherlands…

[@tuinbuddy3385]

@@13tuyuti Er was tijdens COVID een winkel in het nieuws en de grens liep dwars door de winkel. De winkelier was spullen aan het verplaatsen naar het stuk waarop dat moment de regels soepeler waren. Ik begrijp niet zo goed waarom men niet gaat ruilverkavelen?

[@JM19649]

Love this.. i visited baarle hartog/Nassau a few years ago and i planned to go to the tri point later this year, i might have to add here to list

[@mas1485]

You came to HZ but didn't visit Dreilanderpunkt? Maybe next time. I cross this street every week and always find someone making videos. Amazing.

[@rewboss]

I did that a few years ago, on a visit to Aachen.

[@SpadeRZA]

Your timing is perfect. While I lived in Frankfurt, you covered this city, Now that I move to the dutch border, you cover that. Cheers

[@Horrrrrrrrst]

Wait you're in Herzogenrath? Greetings from Aachen!

[@Schlotzinger]

Ich liebe solche wilde Flecken mit absurdem geschichtlichen Hintergrund und aktuellen kreativen Problemlösungen. Das Kleinwalsertal ist so'n Ding, die Vennbahn, Baarle, Schaffhausen, Jungholz usw.

[@emilandersen2195]

Huh, interesting. The word endings -rød/-rod/-rud/-ryd also means "clearing" in Scandinavian languages, although in very old forms.

[@dnocturn84]

and -rode in German for Rodung = clearing

[@HenryLoenwind]

Not very surprising, it's an old Proto-Germanic root that has been kept well because the word for clearing trees was used neither too rarely not too often. The German "roden" comes from northern Middle High German roten, roden and Middle Low German rōden, from Proto-Germanic *rudōną, which is related to *raupijaną (“to rip out, pluck”), *reufaną (“to tear”).[1] Cognate with Dutch rooien. Also akin to English rid, Danish rydde. (Source: wiktionary) I'm sure the word endings you gave come from the saem root, I'm just a bit too lazy to dive that deep. *rudōną has no page of its own, so it's a bit tedious to follow the tree.

[@Petra44YT]

That sounds like a nice place for a weekend outing. If it's easy to reach from Düsseldorf, I might go there. ... I love the little remnants on the tiny wall on the traffic island. 🙂

[@computer1up]

Really easy, direct connection ;) Takes only about an hour. can’t really tell you which lines though, the only time we went there by train was last year (on Japantag even haha) on our way to Hamburg and eventually Denmark.

[@Germanistan]

10:56 I think you are wrong here. You do not need the border stone to tell you that the red brick house in Dutch and the other buildings are German. I know it is weird but as soon as you cross the border, even if it is a ridiculous border like this one, you can tell whether the buildings are German or Dutch. The red brick building looks Dutch, the other ones look very German. Of course this only counts for older buildings, not modern ones.

[@marcokrueger3399]

You'll notice immediately that you've crossed the border because when you enter Germany, the roads are full of potholes, there's no seperate lanes for bicycles and the roads are not light up at night outside of the residential areas

[@busterbiloxi3833]

Jawohl, Mein kommandant!

[@TiberionMarivallis]

Me, an anarchist: So like any border? There is an even weirder part of a border at Baarle-Hertog. This border even runs through buldings.

[@Seff2]

Man, this Summer footage makes me nostalgic. I hate the winter, and it has been so long already and we are now just halfway through...