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An stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of residents began memorialising their heritage. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same inn, attending the very same religious building and placing their children to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw across the brook. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to present identification, even though all knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were forbidden. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his occupational time building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are preserved together with a series of tableaux depicting the most dramatic dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the rules: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but more than twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and sizable car park – is probable to