🔗 Share this article

An creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began documenting their past. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same inn, going to the very same place of worship and sending their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the creek. For a year they seized the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as controls increased they were required to show ID, even though everyone knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were polled early on about how much barrier they wanted to keep. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic events in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but not the pair, in case they sought to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see annually, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big car park – is likely to