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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own wall was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk never stood in the way of the residents gathering in the very same inn, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the identical educational institution.

After the War Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the whole community, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display ID, even though everyone knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a set of displays showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, in case they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Background

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than double the number persons (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. About 15k came to visit annually, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

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