🔗 Share this article

A creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their history. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely finished. Telling the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the same tavern, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their kids to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Then came the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his occupational time building it. Locals were asked early on about how much structure they wanted to keep. They opted for a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 watchtowers are conserved in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the community’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the rules: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but never both, lest they sought to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) died attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They neither backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is expected to