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An stream so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their past. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, visiting the very same religious building and placing their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they took over the entire hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to show identification, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for answering “likewise” to a western local who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They chose a stretch on the west edge, close to where a villager managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the border was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved together with a set of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen details the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their crops; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over two times more persons (more than 300) were killed attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to