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A creek so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers set about commemorating their past. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical pub, attending the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians erected timber poles by the stream. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his working life developing it. Locals were asked early on about how much structure they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a local resident was able to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are conserved together with a set of displays showing the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed specific authorization to care for their crops; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, in case they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but in excess of two times more people (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit annually, optical devices in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and large car park – is expected to