🔗 Share this article

A stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about memorialising their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the very same inn, going to the identical church and sending their children to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russians put up wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire community, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could continue to see each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wished to keep. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a villager was able to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two watchtowers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits depicting the most dramatic dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director details the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but in excess of two times more people (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is expected to