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A creek so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely finished. Telling the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal split, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals socializing in the very same pub, going to the same religious building and placing their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the whole community, creating their headquarters in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the stream. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show ID, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wanted to maintain. They opted for a section on the Bavarian fringe, near where a local resident was able to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are conserved alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they tried to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Background

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but more than two times more persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Modern Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and big vehicle area – is probable to