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A brook so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their past. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall 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 early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the locals socializing in the same tavern, visiting the same religious building and sending their children to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Then came the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Russians put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the whole community, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to retreat across the brook. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to present identification, although each person understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked early on about how much barrier they wished to keep. They selected a portion on the western edge, close to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained together with a set of exhibits depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required special permission to look after their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but in excess of two times more people (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is likely to