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An stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started memorialising their heritage. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same pub, visiting the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they occupied the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were required to display identity papers, although everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German local who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a section on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but never both, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but over two times more individuals (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They did not supported the socialist government nor fought it, the director states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large car park – is expected to