🔗 Share this article

An brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the identical tavern, going to the identical place of worship and placing their young ones to the same school.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians installed wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the whole village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to show ID, even though all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how much barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the western edge, near where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved together with a series of displays illustrating the most significant dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to look after their produce; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They did not supported the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Modern Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and big vehicle area – is expected to