🔗 Share this article

An creek so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their past. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents drinking in the identical inn, going to the identical church and placing their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they took over the whole village, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the creek. For a time, residents could continue to cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present identification, although each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to keep. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident managed to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are maintained in addition to a set of exhibits depicting the most impactful moments in the community’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but never both, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor resisted it, the director states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly 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 television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and big car park – is expected to