🔗 Share this article

A brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents set about memorialising their past. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, visiting the identical church and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the whole hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to retreat across the creek. For a time, villagers could continue to jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to show identification, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a western local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they wanted to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Installations

2 guard towers are preserved together with a collection of displays depicting the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Lebergen details the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to care for their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to