🔗 Share this article

A stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the manner of the residents drinking in the identical tavern, attending the same place of worship and sending their kids to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russians erected wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to retreat across the stream. For a while, locals could continue to cross over, though as controls tightened they were forced to display ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the west perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the border was heavily fortified.

Conserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a series of displays illustrating the most significant moments in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but over double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They neither backed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand visited annually, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Modern Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to