🔗 Share this article

An creek so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started documenting their history. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Addressing the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the same pub, attending the very same church and placing their children to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to pull back back over the brook. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display identification, although each person understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were asked early on about how much barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a portion on the west edge, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are maintained together with a collection of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (more than 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. About 15,000 came to see each year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and large vehicle area – is expected to