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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started commemorating their history. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Telling the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, visiting the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the complete community, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as controls tightened they were required to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a western local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his working life creating it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they desired to keep. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian edge, near where a villager succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers required particular approval to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never both, lest they attempted to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but in excess of two times more people (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big vehicle area – is probable to