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A stream so low you hardly got your feet wet split a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their heritage. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the same inn, going to the same place of worship and placing their kids to the very same school.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to retreat across the creek. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were required to display ID, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the west edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was substantially fortified.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are preserved together with a collection of displays showing the most significant events in the village’s history. As we move, the director enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to care for their crops; the partner could use the combine harvester but never both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit each year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to