🔗 Share this article

An stream so low you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity never stood in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same pub, visiting the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the identical educational institution.

After the War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display identity papers, although everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how much structure they wished to keep. They chose a stretch on the western edge, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two observation towers are conserved together with a collection of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

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