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A creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers began documenting their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the same inn, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to display ID, although each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wished to keep. They opted for a portion on the western edge, near where a villager was able to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are preserved together with a set of exhibits depicting the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents needed special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many people (exceeding 300) died seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Modern Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to