🔗 Share this article

A brook so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people set about commemorating their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents socializing in the very same tavern, visiting the same place of worship and sending their kids to the same school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole village, creating their headquarters in a house on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to show identity papers, even though each person understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his working life creating it. Villagers were polled early on about how much wall they wanted to keep. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved alongside a collection of displays showing the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required particular approval to care for their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but not the two, in case they tried to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Background

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but over twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see each year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

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