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A creek so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started memorialising their past. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely ready. Telling the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same pub, going to the identical religious building and placing their children to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the creek. For a year they seized the entire community, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could continue to view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his working life building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to maintain. They opted for a portion on the west perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Installations

2 observation towers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but in excess of twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and large parking lot – is expected to