🔗 Share this article

A stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their heritage. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the identical inn, attending the same place of worship and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russians put up wooden posts by the stream. For a year they took over the entire hamlet, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present ID, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could continue to see each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were forbidden. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western local who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how what length of structure they desired to preserve. They chose a stretch on the west fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over two times more people (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 visited each year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and large vehicle area – is likely to