🔗 Share this article

An stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents set about documenting their heritage. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, visiting the same church and enrolling their children to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the stream. For a year they seized the entire community, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back across the stream. For a period, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to show identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are maintained together with a series of displays showing the most impactful moments in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than two times more people (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is likely to