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A stream so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals gathering in the identical pub, attending the same religious building and sending their kids to the same school.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they took over the complete hamlet, establishing their control center in a building on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to pull back back over the brook. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as controls increased they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career building it. Residents were asked early on about how much structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the western fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the border was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained together with a series of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Background

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over twice as many people (more than 300) died seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor fought it, the director states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. About 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big car park – is likely to