🔗 Share this article

An brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was opened, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people set about commemorating their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Speaking to the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the same pub, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians installed timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the brook. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were required to show identification, although all was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the western perimeter, near where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are conserved together with a set of tableaux depicting the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to look after their crops; the partner could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is probable to