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An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for in excess of four decades. By an accident of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people set about memorialising their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Telling the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back back over the stream. For a period, locals could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show ID, although all understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for responding “likewise” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how what length of structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western edge, near where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Buildings

2 observation towers are maintained together with a collection of exhibits depicting the most impactful events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but not the two, for fear that they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They did not backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to