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An creek so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the locals drinking in the same pub, going to the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the creek. For a year they occupied the whole community, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to pull back back over the stream. For a period, villagers could continue to hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a local resident was able to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Installations

2 watchtowers are conserved in addition to a series of displays showing the most impactful events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is probable to