🔗 Share this article

A stream so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a community for over four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their past. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, going to the same religious building and sending their young ones to the same school.

Following WWII Split

Then came the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the brook. For a year they took over the whole village, establishing their command in a building on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to retreat back over the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could continue to view each other by climbing hills, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for replying “same to you” to a western resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life creating it. Residents were polled early on about how much structure they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the west edge, close to where a villager managed to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are maintained in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. the director informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. About 15k visited annually, optical devices in hand, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and big parking lot – is probable to