🔗 Share this article

A brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people set about commemorating their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the same inn, attending the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, villagers could continue to cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show identity papers, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his working life developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to preserve. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, near where one of their own managed to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the border was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

A pair of observation towers are conserved alongside a series of displays illustrating the most significant events in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Farmers needed special permission to care for their crops; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but not the two, in case they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is probable to