🔗 Share this article

An stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their heritage. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Addressing the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals socializing in the very same pub, visiting the identical church and placing their young ones to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I heard accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how much structure they desired to keep. They chose a stretch on the west fringe, close to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the border was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Structures

2 observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not the two, for fear that they sought to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither supported the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see every year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and sizable car park – is probable to