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A creek so low you hardly got your feet wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began documenting their past. The project is soon 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 inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals drinking in the identical inn, going to the same place of worship and sending their kids to the same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they came, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to present ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life creating it. Locals were asked early on about how much wall they desired to preserve. They chose a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

Two watchtowers are preserved together with a series of tableaux depicting the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not both, lest they sought to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand visited annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to