Although the East German minefields had been cleared by the end of 1985,  an examination of minefield records after the German reunification reflected over 30,000 mines were not accounted for. Some no doubt, were detonated by wildlife or exploded due to technical  malfunctions, but the number of missing mines was so great that it warranted another sweep of the minefields. Between 1991-1995 engineers were once again busy in the old minefields to account for the missing devices. This time searches uncovered another 1,100 land mines missed in the previous clearing operations. After this exhaustive sweep officials declared the old border "mine free." 

However, in 2001 a ten-year-old boy found an intact PPM-2 land mine in a former border mine field resulting in more clearing operations in the immediate area of the newly discovered land mine. The search discovered no new explosive devices, but to this day there is still the possibility more overlooked mines will surface.