🔗 Share this article

An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a community for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own division was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers began memorialising their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents drinking in the very same inn, attending the very same religious building and sending their children to the very same learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russians installed timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a building on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could continue to see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were banned. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wanted to preserve. They selected a stretch on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are preserved together with a set of displays showing the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we move, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, lest they sought to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than two times more people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They neither supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Modern Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large vehicle area – is expected to