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A brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped households apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals drinking in the identical tavern, visiting the very same place of worship and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to retreat back over the stream. For a period, villagers could continue to cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present ID, even though each person knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a West German villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a set of exhibits depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could use the combine harvester but not both, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but over two times more people (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15k came to see annually, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large car park – is expected to