ABSTRACT
The consequences of state borders have to be considered on two levels. First, borders show the area of the state's direct political power. They secure and they limit, for example, the legal system, the economic system (tax, currency and so on) and the sphere of a specific way of life. In this way the state borders divide a region into areas of differing poli-tical, administrative, economic and social forms of organization. In the case of the two German states this meant, for instance, on the eastern side a highly centralized government system, hierarchically organized with a strong commanding character, and on the western side a federal system with self-governing entities at different administrative levels. Or, with respect to agriculture: huge co-operatives in Eastern Germany, individual private farms in Western Germany. Or with respect to property ownership: state-owned in the East, mainly private in the West.
