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A brook so low you barely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about commemorating their past. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the way of the locals socializing in the same inn, visiting the identical church and sending their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete community, establishing their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to withdraw across the brook. For a while, locals could continue to hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to display ID, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side signaling and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of structure they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, near where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the border was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Structures

A pair of observation towers are conserved alongside a series of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and big parking lot – is likely to