🔗 Share this article

An creek so low you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, going to the same religious building and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the entire hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were required to display identity papers, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a western local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to keep. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian edge, near where a villager was able to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are conserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers required specific authorization to care for their produce; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never the two, lest they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. About 15k visited annually, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and large car park – is expected to