[ubernostrum]

Anecdotally, I spent most of July traveling around western Europe, entirely by train. Passing between other Schengen countries? No problem, you don't even know you crossed a border unless the conductor announces it. But at the German border the train stops, the crew is changed, sometimes the locomotive is changed, and on one train the police came on board at the border and asked to see everyone's identification. Other countries, the crew also just checked tickets shortly after boarding, then marked down "checked that seat, they're going to this place". Of the multiple trains I took in Germany, only one did that; the rest had the crew checking everyone after every major stop, to the point that I finally just left my ticket sitting in my lap so I wouldn't have to keep getting it out of my bag.

So I would say that of the countries whose borders I crossed -- Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands -- Germany was by far the one with the most border controls. In fact, it was the one that had border controls.

(also the German trains had the highest rates of delay and malfunction; I did one six-hour trip to Berlin on a train which had no food available, and another six-hour trip on a different German train where the air conditioning didn't work, on a sunny day over 30C, and missed a connection to a TGV because the ICE was running nearly 30 minutes late)

[lispm]

Ticket control has nothing to do with border controls.

In every train in Germany, if the crew is changed, they will control your ticket. They say 'Personalwechsel' and control the tickets again.

You don't need a passport, visa, or whatever to buy a ticket and no train crew is controlling your passport. They are also NOT authorized to see your passport. If you don't have a valid ticket, they will ask for your passport for identification purposes. You don't have to show it. They will then call the police, which you then HAVE to show your passport.

The train crew only looks at the passport, if you used it online to buy a ticket, using the passport number as an identification number. So they check the online ticket and look at the passport number. But you can use other ways of checking for a correct online ticket (using your credit card number for example) and you can buy your ticket also offline.

It also does not matter for 505 million EU citizens. The police may control your passport. But that's it.

ALL 505 MILLION EU CITIZENS ARE ALLOWED TO TRAVEL AND WORK IN GERMANY WITHOUT VISUM.

Details: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=457&langId=en

[ubernostrum]

I think you have misread.

I was pointing out two separate things which occurred:

1. German train crews relentlessly checking and re-checking and re-re-re-checking train tickets after each major stop, rather than (as with every other country) checking once, noting the passenger's destination, and then not bothering them again. This was not an identification check, it was a ticket check. This is primarily an annoyance, but seemed part of a pattern of much stricter controls imposed by German crews and within Germany in general, as corroborated by...

2. At the first stop inside the German border, police -- that is, officers in uniforms which read POLIZEI -- boarding the train and carrying out a check of every passenger's identification. This was not a ticket check, it was an identification check.

At that border stop I was also asked, by an officer who did not speak sufficient English (and I speak no German, only English and French) and so had to show me printed cards and ask me to point to answers, the purpose of my visit to Germany and the duration of my stay in Germany. This was asked despite my already having legally entered and having remained continuously within the Schengen area (my passport, already displayed by that point, contained the entry stamp, ironically from an airport in Germany), and despite my already having entered Germany twice on that trip.

As a result I am extremely skeptical of the idea that Germany has an "open border" or "no border controls" for intra-Schengen travel. That border stop on a train, coming from another Schengen country into Germany, was actually more in-depth than the examination at my initial entry in Frankfurt airport.

[skrebbel]

The part you misunderstood was that that police officer couldn't have denied you entry into the country. He could have taken you to the police station for questioning, just like the police in any other country can if they think there's grounds for it.

Basically, you ran into a police patrol that happened to be near the border. It could've been a random check for illegal activity (drug trafficking, etc), or they might have been looking for something in particular.

It was not a border control, and the German borders aren't more open or closed just because their police is relatively eager to do patrols. As a counterpoint, I was once stopped by German police on the highway near Hannover - far, far away from any border, and asked the same questions you were asked.

I'm from the Netherlands, and I travel into Germany many times a year, by all kinds of means of transport. I've been stopped near the border (also on a train, much like your story actually) exactly once. You just had bad luck.

Finally, while the Schengen treaty has a lot to say about freedom of movement, there's no section about welcome hugs.

[hectormalot]

Exactly. I can only add that the borders are indeed very open. I took a plane from Frankfurt to Amsterdam last week without even showing my passport once. (boarding pass yes, passport no)

There are exceptions, e.g.:

* Switzerland, although part of Schengen, will sometimes do boarder checks

* The UK, although part of the EU, is not part of Schengen and will require ID for entry and exit

[ubernostrum]

The part you misunderstood was that that police officer couldn't have denied you entry into the country.

See my other reply about the importance of perception:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8220096

[skrebbel]

Are you really arguing that because you got the perception that it was a border control, Germany's borders are not open? Even when it was made clear to you by multiple people that it doesn't commonly happen like that?

That, or you just want to complain on the internet about the bad police men being not nice to you. That's all right, but that's not what this discussion was about.

[lispm]

I don't.

> German train crews relentlessly checking and re-checking and re-re-re-checking

That's done every time a crew changes. The same crew does exactly check you once, but they go multiple times through the train.

This has nothing to do with immigration or crime. Train crews have no authority of the police.

> At the first stop inside the German border, police -- that is, officers in uniforms which read POLIZEI -- boarding the train and carrying out a check of every passenger's identification. This was not a ticket check, it was an identification check.

That happens randomly or during special tasks. There are also police checks on the road near borders, where they check some cars they find interesting. Sometimes they also do coordinated searches for drugs, stolen cars, ...

Targets are illegal immigrants and criminal activity.

> the purpose of my visit to Germany and the duration of my stay in Germany. This was asked despite my already having legally entered and having remained continuously within the Schengen area (my passport, already displayed by that point, contained the entry stamp, ironically from an airport in Germany), and despite my already having entered Germany twice on that trip.

These are standard questions of every kind of border control. It's just that in the Schengen area the controls between member states are more or less random and not necessarily at the border.

Some people may never see a border control and others might see it more often. But for somebody from Poland entering Germany, the checks are only to have an eye on criminal activity. Other than that polish persons can freely move and work in Germany according to EU law. A lot of them work here. Legal and illegal. Illegal is work, if the work is not official registered, no taxes are paid, etc.

> As a result I am extremely skeptical of the idea that Germany has an "open border" or "no border controls" for intra-Schengen travel.

You can imagine that criminals are much more clever than you when it comes to avoiding the few random controls... they also have people broadcasting any police activity. A patrol on the train? Leave the train and take a private car over the border using a small street somewhere...

[ubernostrum]

Keep in mind that perception matters a lot. This is, for example, a big part of how the TSA obtains "cooperation" from air passengers in the United States -- even though they aren't law enforcement and can't perform law-enforcement tasks like arresting people, everything about the way they present themselves (uniforms, badges, etc.) is designed to create the perception that they are and they can.

So if I'm on a train and it stops at the border, and a uniformed government official comes in and asks to see my passport and then starts asking me immigration questions, the perception is not "this is an uncontrolled border, just got a random check that could have happened anywhere in the country". The perception is not "oh, this officer can't actually deny me entry".

The perception is "this is an immigration check at the border", and the dynamic of the situation flows from there.

The ticket checking by rail crews does seem to be an entirely German thing (again, other countries' rail crews just had a list and marked which seats had been checked, so even if another crew or crew member came through later they didn't need to repeat it), and I suspect there's a larger cultural pattern here tied into things like the German identification-obligation laws (which, to be honest, made me more than a bit uncomfortable when I learned about them -- I have enough trouble with the idea that in my home country courts have ruled I can be subjected to an ID check at any time, learning that it's still a deeply-ingrained thing in a country with Germany's history is off the scale of unsettling for me).

[lispm]

> So if I'm on a train and it stops at the border, and a uniformed government official comes in and asks to see my passport and then starts asking me immigration questions, the perception is not "this is an uncontrolled border, just got a random check that could have happened anywhere in the country". The perception is not "oh, this officer can't actually deny me entry".

If you travel in a foreign country, you might want to make yourself familiar with the usual regulations.

> The ticket checking by rail crews does seem to be an entirely German thing (again, other countries' rail crews just had a list and marked which seats had been checked, so even if another crew or crew member came through later they didn't need to repeat it),

You can easily see that this does not work.

> identification-obligation

I fail to see a problem with having a passport.