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A brook so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their history. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the identical pub, going to the same religious building and sending their young ones to the very same school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw back over the stream. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to show identification, although each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a West German villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked early on about how much barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the western fringe, near where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a set of tableaux illustrating the most impactful moments in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the partner could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and large parking lot – is probable to