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A stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers started commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Addressing the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents socializing in the very same pub, going to the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to display ID, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I heard narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were polled early on about how how long a section structure they wished to maintain. They selected a section on the west edge, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 guard towers are preserved in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but not the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to visit each year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Current Developments

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