🔗 Share this article

A brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own wall was opened, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the identical tavern, going to the same religious building and sending their young ones to the identical learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a year they occupied the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a western resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how much wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most significant events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, lest they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and big vehicle area – is probable to