🔗 Share this article

An stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. 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 barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was opened, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their past. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely prepared. Addressing the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the identical inn, visiting the very same church and sending their children to the same school.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a year they occupied the complete community, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the brook. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to display ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to see each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were forbidden. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I heard narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Locals were polled early on about how much wall they wanted to keep. They chose a section on the western edge, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but never the pair, lest they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to see each year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big vehicle area – is expected to