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A creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own division was breached, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers started memorialising their past. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal division, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the very same inn, attending the very same place of worship and sending their young ones to the same school.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole hamlet, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat back over the brook. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to display identification, although everyone knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section wall they desired to keep. They selected a portion on the west fringe, near where a local resident was able to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Structures

A pair of guard towers are preserved together with a collection of displays showing the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. About 15,000 visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and large car park – is probable to