🔗 Share this article

An brook so low you barely got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own division was opened, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their past. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

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

Past Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the very same pub, going to the very same church and enrolling their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire village, establishing their control center in a building on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as controls increased they were required to display ID, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his working life building it. Residents were asked early on about how much structure they wished to keep. They selected a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to tend to their crops; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, in case they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and large car park – is probable to