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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents started commemorating their history. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the residents drinking in the identical tavern, visiting the very same church and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russians erected wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to pull back across the creek. For a while, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his working life creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a series of tableaux showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but not both, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than two times more persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit each year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large car park – is likely to