🔗 Share this article

A stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which tore households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the same pub, attending the identical church and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his working life creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a section on the west perimeter, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

Two guard towers are conserved together with a set of displays depicting the most significant moments in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Background

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between two political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, the director explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see annually, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is probable to