🔗 Share this article

A stream so shallow you hardly got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own wall was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the residents socializing in the very same tavern, visiting the identical church and sending their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were required to display identity papers, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could continue to view each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to keep. They chose a section on the Bavarian edge, near where a local resident succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the border was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux depicting the most impactful dates in the village’s history. As we move, the director details the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but in excess of double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to visit each year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the television series, a television program about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and large vehicle area – is probable to