🔗 Share this article

An stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers started memorialising their history. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore households apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents gathering in the identical tavern, visiting the same religious building and enrolling their children to the same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the whole village, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to present identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “likewise” to a West German villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career building it. Residents were asked early on about how much structure they wished to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained in addition to a series of displays depicting the most significant moments in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen lists the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but more than two times more persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is probable to