🔗 Share this article

A creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started documenting their past. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the locals drinking in the identical inn, attending the very same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

After the War Division

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected timber poles by the stream. For a year they occupied the whole village, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time developing it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a section on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager was able to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was heavily fortified.

Conserved Structures

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic moments in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but not both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to