🔗 Share this article

A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents set about documenting their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the locals gathering in the identical inn, attending the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

After the War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present ID, although all knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to keep. They opted for a portion on the west fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are conserved together with a set of exhibits depicting the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could use the harvesting machine but not the pair, for fear that they tried to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but over double the number people (more than 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see annually, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to