🔗 Share this article

An stream so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own division was torn down, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their heritage. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the manner of the locals drinking in the same pub, going to the very same religious building and enrolling their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were required to show identification, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were prohibited. One woman was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wanted to maintain. They chose a stretch on the west perimeter, close to where a villager managed to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Installations

A pair of guard towers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful events in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain special permission to look after their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not both, in case they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than twice as many individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see each year, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Modern Evolutions

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