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A creek so low you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers began memorialising their heritage. The effort is soon 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 opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals gathering in the very same pub, going to the same religious building and sending their children to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they seized the whole community, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were banned. One woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section barrier they desired to keep. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved together with a set of exhibits depicting the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between two political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They did not backed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Current Developments

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