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An creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was breached, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about commemorating their history. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

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

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the manner of the residents drinking in the same pub, attending the very same church and sending their young ones to the identical school.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the whole community, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to pull back back over the brook. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to show identity papers, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side waving and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a western resident who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his working life developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They chose a stretch on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of observation towers are conserved in addition to a collection of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic dates in the village’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not the pair, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They neither supported the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see each year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large car park – is likely to