🔗 Share this article

An creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about memorialising their past. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the same tavern, going to the identical religious building and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled early on about how much barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Installations

Two guard towers are preserved together with a series of exhibits illustrating the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents needed particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, in case they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Modern Developments

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