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A brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started memorialising their past. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Bygone Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the very same inn, visiting the same religious building and sending their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could continue to jump across, though as controls became stricter they were required to show ID, although everyone knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a West German local who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life developing it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They selected a portion on the western fringe, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are preserved together with a collection of displays depicting the most impactful events in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the pair, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They neither supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is expected to