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A stream so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, visiting the very same church and enrolling their kids to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the brook. For a year they took over the complete community, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as controls tightened they were required to present identification, although all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of structure they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the west edge, near where a villager was able to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are preserved together with a set of tableaux illustrating the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed special permission to look after their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but over two times more people (well over 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither backed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Current Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, movie theater and big vehicle area – is probable to