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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a group of villagers started memorialising their history. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Telling the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the identical inn, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the creek. For a year they seized the entire community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to cross over, though as controls tightened they were forced to display identity papers, although each person understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the western edge, near where one of their own was able to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Installations

Two guard towers are preserved together with a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful events in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but not both, in case they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over double the number people (more than 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is expected to