🔗 Share this article

A brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their past. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals drinking in the very same inn, visiting the identical religious building and placing their children to the same educational institution.

After the War Division

Then came the second world war. The moment they came, the Russians put up wooden posts by the brook. For a year they took over the entire community, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were required to show ID, even though each person understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were consulted early on about how what length of structure they desired to keep. They opted for a section on the west fringe, close to where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the village’s history. As we move, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but not the pair, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to living in the grey zone between two political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and large parking lot – is probable to