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A brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the very same tavern, going to the very same place of worship and placing their kids to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were required to present ID, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian local who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how much barrier they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the west perimeter, near where a villager was able to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a series of exhibits illustrating the most impactful events in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never both, in case they tried to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to