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A creek so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own division was torn down, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents began commemorating their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the same inn, visiting the same church and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the brook. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could continue to cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a western resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

Two observation towers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to tend to their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the two, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but more than two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to see each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is expected to