🔗 Share this article

A creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents began documenting their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

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

Past Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the same inn, going to the very same religious building and placing their kids to the very same school.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were required to present ID, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could continue to see each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the west edge, adjacent to where a local resident was able to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the border was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant moments in the village’s past. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed particular approval to care for their produce; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director informs me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, the director states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit annually, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and large parking lot – is probable to