🔗 Share this article

A stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about memorialising their past. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals gathering in the very same pub, going to the same church and enrolling their children to the same school.

After the War Division

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they took over the whole village, setting up their command in a house on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to pull back back over the stream. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to show identity papers, although each person understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. One woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for replying “likewise” to a West German local who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed special permission to care for their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but not both, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (well over 300) died attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Roughly 15k visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and large vehicle area – is expected to