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An stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started documenting their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Telling the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals socializing in the very same pub, going to the same church and sending their young ones to the identical educational institution.

After the War Separation

Then came the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russians erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they occupied the entire community, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were polled early on about how much wall they wished to keep. They selected a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained in addition to a series of displays showing the most significant events in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director details the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Farmers needed special permission to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big car park – is expected to