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An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents began documenting their history. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, going to the identical church and sending their young ones to the identical school.

After the War Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the creek. For a year they occupied the whole village, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were forced to display ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They selected a stretch on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own was able to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are conserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most significant moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They neither supported the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see every year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big parking lot – is probable to