🔗 Share this article

A brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about memorialising their history. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same inn, attending the identical religious building and sending their children to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the brook. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw across the stream. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to view each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to preserve. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

Two guard towers are maintained in addition to a series of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, the director details the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to care for their crops; the partner could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but more than two times more individuals (more than 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is expected to