The Franco-German border can be traced back to the 17th century, and the various treaties following the
Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), starting with the
Treaty of Westphalia (1648) and the
Treaty of Nijmegen (1678–1679), marking the
Rhine as the frontier between the
Kingdom of France, and the different German states. The actual border was determined in the
Congress of Vienna in 1815. The border then changed after the French defeat during the
Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), where the
French Third Republic was forced to yield
Alsace-Lorraine to the new
German Empire in 1871. The territory was then returned to France 48 years later after the
Treaty of Versailles in 1919. The border changed again in 1941 when
Nazi Germany de facto annexed the region (without international legal recognition, or treaty). The current border was re-established after the defeat of Nazi Germany in
World War II. In 2019, German authorities instituted extended border checks. These checks resulted in 178 people who had been banned from entering Germany being denied entry. 1,177 people on the wanted list were arrested, there were 1,235 breaches of residency laws, 406 breaches against narcotics laws, 205 breaches of weapons laws, 47 cases of falsified documents, and 19 people with extremist backgrounds were hindered from entering Germany. Most of these were along the borders to France and Austria. ==Route==