🔗 Share this article

An creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own division was torn down, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers began commemorating their past. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the way of the locals gathering in the same tavern, visiting the identical church and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russians put up wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to retreat across the creek. For a period, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show identity papers, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they wanted to maintain. They selected a stretch on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are conserved in addition to a series of tableaux showing the most impactful moments in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could work the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they tried to escape. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many persons (more than 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to