🔗 Share this article

A brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about commemorating their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, attending the same religious building and sending their children to the identical learning center.

After the War Division

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the complete community, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present ID, even though all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They selected a section on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, the director details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but never both, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over double the number persons (more than 300) died trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and big car park – is probable to