🔗 Share this article

A creek so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their past. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

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

Past Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents drinking in the very same tavern, visiting the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the east side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career building it. Villagers were polled early on about how much barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most impactful events in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their fields; the partner could operate the combine harvester but not both, for fear that they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over double the number persons (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is expected to