🔗 Share this article

A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their past. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the very same tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the identical educational institution.

After the War Division

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they came, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the brook. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing 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 period, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to present ID, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to keep. They opted for a section on the west edge, near where one of their own succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

Two observation towers are preserved together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could work the combine harvester but not both, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (well over 300) died seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 visited annually, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and large car park – is likely to