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An creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people set about memorialising their past. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, visiting the very same religious building and sending their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russians put up timber poles by the creek. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to present identity papers, even though everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for replying “likewise” to a West German local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a stretch on the western edge, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most significant dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but never both, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (well over 300) died attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director informs me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15k came to see annually, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Current Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and large vehicle area – is expected to