🔗 Share this article

An creek so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely finished. Telling the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the same inn, going to the same place of worship and placing their young ones to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the whole village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. One woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to keep. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own was able to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of observation towers are conserved in addition to a collection of tableaux illustrating the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required specific authorization to tend to their produce; the partner could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) died trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to