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An brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people started documenting their history. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Past Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, attending the very same religious building and sending their young ones to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the complete community, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show ID, although all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were banned. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his working life creating it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Installations

Two guard towers are conserved alongside a collection of displays depicting the most significant moments in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, the director enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but never both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big vehicle area – is likely to