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A creek so low you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people set about memorialising their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the same inn, going to the identical place of worship and placing their young ones to the identical learning center.

After the War Division

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as controls increased they were obliged to display identity papers, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a western resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, near where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

2 guard towers are conserved together with a collection of tableaux showing the most impactful events in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, in case they sought to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but more than twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15k visited annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to