🔗 Share this article

A creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, attending the very same religious building and sending their kids to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the complete village, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, locals could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were required to display identity papers, even though all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to preserve. They opted for a section on the western fringe, near where a villager managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are conserved together with a series of displays illustrating the most significant moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, the director enumerates the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to look after their crops; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, in case they sought to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but more than double the number people (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see each year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is probable to