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An creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own division was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their heritage. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same inn, going to the same church and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the brook. For a year they took over the whole village, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the brook. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations increased they were forced to present identity papers, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian local who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his working life developing it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how much barrier they wanted to keep. They chose a portion on the west edge, near where a local resident managed to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a set of exhibits showing the most significant events in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit each year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and big vehicle area – is probable to