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A brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started memorialising their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals gathering in the very same inn, attending the identical church and sending their children to the same learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they took over the whole village, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, residents could continue to cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to display ID, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could continue to view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how much structure they wished to keep. They chose a stretch on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident managed to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are conserved together with a collection of exhibits illustrating the most significant events in the village’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to care for their produce; the partner could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but in excess of two times more persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They neither backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. About 15k came to see every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and large parking lot – is expected to