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An creek so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started commemorating their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents gathering in the identical tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the stream. For a year they seized the entire community, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to pull back back over the stream. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to show identification, although all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian edge, close to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed specific authorization to care for their produce; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They neither supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is probable to