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An brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of villagers began commemorating their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same tavern, visiting the same religious building and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the entire community, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the stream. For a period, residents could continue to jump across, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to display identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how much barrier they wanted to maintain. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Preserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are conserved together with a series of displays showing the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we move, the director enumerates the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between two political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is probable to