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A brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk did not stand in the way of the locals gathering in the same tavern, attending the identical religious building and sending their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, creating their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a while, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to show identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side waving and shouting were prohibited. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his occupational time creating it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a local resident was able to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are maintained together with a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required particular approval to look after their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but over two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is probable to