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A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

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

Historical Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals drinking in the very same pub, going to the very same church and sending their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show ID, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they wished to preserve. They selected a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a local resident was able to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a set of displays illustrating the most significant dates in the community’s history. As we walk, the director lists the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed special permission to tend to their produce; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but never the two, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The border between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly 15k came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Modern Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to