🔗 Share this article

An stream so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents drinking in the very same pub, going to the very same religious building and placing their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to retreat back over the stream. For a period, villagers could continue to cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show ID, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a western local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they desired to preserve. They opted for a section on the west fringe, close to where a villager managed to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the border was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 guard towers are conserved in addition to a collection of displays showing the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never the two, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but over two times more people (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About 15k came to see every year, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, movie theater and large vehicle area – is likely to