🔗 Share this article

A creek so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started documenting their past. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents gathering in the same inn, attending the same place of worship and placing their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, establishing their control center in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to display identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for answering “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I heard narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wanted to maintain. They chose a stretch on the western edge, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are preserved together with a series of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the community’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They did not backed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. About 15k came to visit every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and big car park – is expected to