🔗 Share this article

An brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own division was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people set about documenting their heritage. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the locals drinking in the very same tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole community, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to display identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Residents were consulted early on about how much barrier they wished to keep. They selected a section on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own was able to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most impactful dates in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents needed special permission to care for their crops; the spouse could work the combine harvester but never both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many individuals (more than 300) died seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit annually, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and sizable car park – is expected to