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A brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own division was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers started documenting their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same inn, visiting the identical church and placing their young ones to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. The moment they came, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire community, creating their command in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to display identification, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a western local who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled early on about how much structure they wanted to keep. They opted for a portion on the west perimeter, close to where a villager was able to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are conserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s history. As we move, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but not the pair, in case they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but over double the number persons (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to