🔗 Share this article

An stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for more than four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people began memorialising their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the locals gathering in the same tavern, attending the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were required to present identification, although all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a western local who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section structure they wanted to keep. They chose a section on the west edge, near where a local resident was able to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a collection of displays illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required specific authorization to tend to their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not both, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large car park – is expected to