An stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.
Months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their history. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”
“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”
Right from its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity never stood in the path of the residents socializing in the very same inn, going to the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the very same learning center.
Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they seized the whole village, establishing their command in a building on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to come back at evening.
After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.
I heard stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.
Two watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of exhibits depicting the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents needed particular approval to look after their fields; the partner could use the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.
The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) died seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.
Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.
For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.
Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.
The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to
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