🔗 Share this article

A brook so low you barely got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started documenting their history. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, attending the same religious building and sending their young ones to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the creek. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to present ID, although each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were asked early on about how much barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are conserved alongside a series of displays showing the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents needed special permission to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number individuals (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand visited annually, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to