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An stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people set about commemorating their history. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the very same tavern, going to the identical religious building and placing their kids to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to present ID, although all understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a western resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Locals were consulted early on about how much barrier they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west edge, near where one of their own managed to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved together with a series of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s history. As we move, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the combine harvester but never the two, for fear that they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (well over 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. About 15k came to see every year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to