🔗 Share this article

A stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers began documenting their history. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely finished. Telling the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the identical inn, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their children to the same school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they seized the entire hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to display identity papers, even though each person understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a section on the west fringe, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained alongside a set of exhibits showing the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, the director lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but more than two times more people (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and large vehicle area – is likely to