2 Dreiländerdeck : Die innerdeutsche Grenze
What's special about Mödlareuth is the fact that here the border sliced right through the small village, one part of it belonging to Bavaria the other to Thuringia. When after WWII the Allies used old administrative borders to set up their respective zones of occupation, this formerly harmless bureaucratic border became part of the heavily fortified Iron Curtain separating the West (in this case the US zone) from the Eastern Bloc.
And since the territory of this tiny (double) village was so small, the GDR border fortifications took more or less the same form as they did in Berlin (see Berlin Wall), hence Mödlrareuth's nickname "Little Berlin".
Unlike in Berlin, however, there were no border crossings/checkpoints at Mödlareuth - so for 37 years it was impossible to get from one part of the village to the other. Even waving at the former fellow villagers in the West was forbidden in the East.
As the border was considered particularly sensitive here, the GDR authorities forcibly resettled some villagers who were regarded as "unreliable" and even a building that stood right by the border line was demolished.
Over the years the border was then increasingly fortified, until, with the building of the present wall in 1966, it resembled the Berlin Wall. In fact the same type of construction was applied here and supplemented by the same types of watchtowers. A tiny door in the wall allowed GDR border guards to step outside and patrol along the border stretch between the wall and the little river that legally formed the actual border line.
Only one attempt at fleeing over the border into the West ever took place in Mödlareuth - and it was even successful (with a lot of luck), unlike so many other such attempts that ended in tragedy ... see e.g. Schifflersgrund.
Remarkably, a stretch of the wall was preserved after the collapse of the GDR and the Eastern Bloc, while almost everywhere else this hated construction was quickly torn down and all traces of it erased, before any thoughts of preservation occurred to anyone or voices calling for it were raised/heard.
In Mödlareuth, in contrast, the villagers did have that foresight and saved a stretch of wall from demolition - even though only one month after the "fall" of the wall in Berlin, a temporary border crossing point was cut into the wall at Mödlareuth. And pieces of the broken-down concrete wall became souvenirs here too - people even had their pieces stamped by the border guards!
But a sizeable stretch of wall was left standing to serve as a historic monument and reminder of the dark days of Germany's division. In fact, the museum at Mödlareuth was founded as early as July 1990 - and is thus one of the oldest of its type.
The odd result of all this is that one of best places to see what the Berlin Wall really looked like is to be found not in Berlin itself but here in this forgotten remote corner of south-east Germany near the Czech Republic! (The only other, even longer, stretch of Berlin Wall outside Berlin is to be found at Hötensleben! Further away from the village core of Mödlareuth, the border had the usual metal fence form, and apart from some reconstructions near the left-over wall, these have all completely disappeared - but cf. Behrungen).
What there is to see: Even as you approach the village of Mödlareuth and head for the main car park you can already see the star attraction of the site: the stretch of 'classic' GDR border wall - the most iconic image of the Iron Curtain.
Another relic from the Cold War also stands by the car park: an old T-34 tank, the main Soviet tank at the end of WWII and through the first phase of post-war East-West confrontation. The Soviet model helicopter that also used to stand by the car park and which you can still make out on Google maps, however, has disappeared ... where to I do not know.
When you get to the entrance to this right in the middle of the tiny village, you can either get your tickets at the booth there or, if it's not open (like when I visited in June 2011), go first to the main ticket office of the museum. Next to this, there's also the cinema room, where a 19-minute introductory film is shown about the border in general, and everyday life with the border in Mödlareuth in particular. It is available in English, as well as in German or French. The museum staff can set the language of your choice. You could always come back to see the film, in case it is already running or about to start in a language you don't want, and go to see the exhibitions first. There is a certain amount of overlap of the content of the film with parts of the main museum exhibition (esp. some eyewitness accounts), so if you've already seen it, you can skip the relevant sections in the museum later.
inner grenze
routes de l'impossible sur la Kolonnenweg, Dreiländereck BRD-DDR-CSSR
12 апр 2024
