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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall 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 show was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the very same inn, going to the very same place of worship and placing their children to the same school.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the stream. For a year they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the brook. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to show identity papers, even though each person understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career building it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They chose a stretch on the west edge, close to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Installations

Two guard towers are preserved in addition to a series of displays showing the most significant moments in the village’s past. As we walk, the director lists the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is probable to