🔗 Share this article

An brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers began memorialising their past. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the locals socializing in the same tavern, attending the very same religious building and enrolling their children to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the complete village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a time, residents could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were forced to display identification, although everyone knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a West German local who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how how long a section wall they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Conserved Structures

2 guard towers are preserved alongside a series of tableaux illustrating the most significant moments in the village’s history. As we walk, the director details the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but over double the number persons (more than 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to see each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to