🔗 Share this article

A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began memorialising their heritage. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Telling the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the locals socializing in the identical pub, attending the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russians erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire village, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could continue to cross over, though as controls became stricter they were required to display identity papers, although everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to see each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his working life creating it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they desired to keep. They chose a stretch on the west perimeter, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 observation towers are preserved in addition to a collection of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but not both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to