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An creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents set about commemorating their past. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

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

Bygone Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the same school.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the whole hamlet, creating their command in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to pull back across the creek. For a time, villagers could continue to jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present identification, although all knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Locals were polled early on about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They selected a section on the west perimeter, near where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the border was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved together with a set of displays illustrating the most significant events in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they attempted to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than two times more people (more than 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and large car park – is likely to