🔗 Share this article

A stream so low you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers set about commemorating their past. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the path of the locals gathering in the same pub, visiting the same church and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, creating their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to retreat across the creek. For a time, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present identity papers, even though each person knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Installations

2 watchtowers are conserved together with a set of displays illustrating the most impactful events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director details the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Background

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is probable to