ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on cross-border trade and shopping mobility in the German-Polish borderlands, employing observations, newspaper articles from regional newspapers, and personal conversations with German and Polish nationals in Frankfurt and Subice in the summer of 2012. Borderlands may reflect both physical and mental borders. In addition to border stories and experiences of border crossers which can encourage or discourage cross-border mobility, border restrictions and policies may also influence the degree of familiarity and cross-border practices in a borderland. While trade and shopping tourism in West Berlin came to an end, new opportunities in cross-border trade and shopping arose as a result of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the ensuing political changes in both East Germany and Poland. The mental border threshold is thus more dynamic than it initially appears. Although state borders can considerably influence cross-border mobility, mental borders are constantly open to change and do not have to begin or end at a state border.
