🔗 Share this article

An stream so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same inn, going to the same church and enrolling their kids to the identical educational institution.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the complete community, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a period, villagers could continue to hop over, though as limitations increased they were required to display identification, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the east side waving and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his occupational time building it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to keep. They selected a section on the west perimeter, near where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are conserved alongside a collection of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, in case they attempted to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Background

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over two times more persons (well over 300) died seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Current Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big parking lot – is probable to