🔗 Share this article

A stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers started memorialising their past. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

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

Past Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the manner of the residents socializing in the very same tavern, going to the identical place of worship and sending their young ones to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the creek. For a time, locals could continue to cross over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they wanted to keep. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian fringe, close to where one of their own was able to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two observation towers are preserved together with a set of exhibits depicting the most significant moments in the village’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to see each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and big car park – is likely to