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An stream so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started memorialising their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents gathering in the very same inn, going to the very same religious building and sending their kids to the same school.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the complete village, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back back over the creek. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to present ID, even though each person was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could continue to view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section wall they wanted to keep. They chose a section on the west fringe, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are maintained alongside a series of displays depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, the director details the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required particular approval to care for their crops; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than twice as many people (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director informs me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to