🔗 Share this article

An creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a group of villagers began memorialising their past. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the identical inn, attending the very same church and sending their children to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his professional career building it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They chose a section on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

2 observation towers are conserved in addition to a set of exhibits depicting the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but more than two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor fought it, the director states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and large car park – is expected to