🔗 Share this article

An brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about commemorating their past. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, visiting the identical church and sending their kids to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a year they took over the whole community, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were required to show ID, even though each person was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a West German local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how much wall they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the west fringe, close to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are conserved alongside a collection of displays showing the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents needed particular approval to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never both, in case they tried to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over twice as many people (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is probable to