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An creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their heritage. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to pull back across the brook. For a time, residents could continue to cross over, though as controls increased they were forced to present identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They selected a section on the western perimeter, close to where a villager was able to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are conserved together with a series of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They neither backed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to visit annually, optical devices in hand, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to