Büsingen am Hochrhein is a German municipality of about 1,548 people and 7.62 square kilometers entirely enclosed by the Swiss cantons of Schaffhausen, Zurich and Thurgau, separated from the rest of Germany by a strip of Swiss land just 680 meters wide at its narrowest. This episode describes daily life on a border marked by 123 boundary stones, where residents have both German and Swiss phone prefixes, two postal codes, and, in the hamlet of Stemmer, an international line running down the middle of the street.

The conversation traces the exclave to a 1693 dispute in which Austrian lord Eberhard im Thurn was kidnapped by Schaffhausen authorities, hardening a grudge that survived Napoleon, the German Empire and a 1918 referendum in which 96 percent of residents voted to join Switzerland. It covers World War II soldiers disarming and donning Swiss greatcoats to walk home on leave, Switzerland’s post-1945 refusal to annex the town for fear of legitimizing Allied border changes, and the 1967 treaty that placed Büsingen in the Swiss customs union while leaving it legally German, with strict police quotas, unique BÜS license plates and a football club playing in the Swiss league.

• Why a 96 percent vote to leave Germany was ignored for lack of land to swap
• Ten Swiss officers, roughly 45 German officers, and a chase that stops at the curb
• Swiss francs, a 7.7 percent VAT and zero municipal property tax
• The income tax trap that pushes young workers out and draws retirees in
• How Büsingen became the oldest municipality by average age in Baden-Württemberg