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A brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, visiting the same religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same school.

After the War Separation

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians put up wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

2 observation towers are conserved together with a collection of tableaux showing the most significant events in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents needed special permission to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but more than double the number people (well over 300) died attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit annually, optical devices in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is likely to