🔗 Share this article

A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a village for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was torn down, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their past. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the identical pub, going to the very same church and placing their young ones to the identical school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were required to present identity papers, although each person knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could continue to see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to preserve. They selected a section on the western fringe, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are preserved in addition to a series of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, in case they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 came to visit each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big car park – is probable to