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An stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, attending the very same religious building and placing their young ones to the same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole community, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present identity papers, even though all knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career building it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much barrier they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are maintained in addition to a series of displays depicting the most significant dates in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required specific authorization to look after their produce; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is likely to