🔗 Share this article

A creek so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own division was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers began commemorating their history. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, going to the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians erected timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they seized the entire village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show identity papers, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could continue to view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I was told accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a section on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a villager managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained in addition to a set of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to care for their crops; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between two political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a type of site of interest. About 15k visited each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is expected to