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A brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their history. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the identical inn, going to the same church and sending their young ones to the identical school.

After the War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, establishing their control center in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to retreat across the brook. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to present ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could continue to see each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a western villager who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life developing it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They selected a stretch on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own managed to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their crops; the partner could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed trying to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. About 15k came to see each year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to