🔗 Share this article

An creek so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started commemorating their heritage. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, going to the identical church and placing their children to the same school.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, villagers could continue to cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to present identification, although all was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were banned. One woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for responding “back at you” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his professional career developing it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much wall they desired to maintain. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved together with a set of tableaux depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but never the pair, in case they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but more than twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. About 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and sizable car park – is expected to