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An stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents set about documenting their history. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals socializing in the same pub, visiting the very same religious building and sending their children to the same school.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire community, creating their control center in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to pull back across the brook. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to show identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could continue to see each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a western villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They selected a stretch on the west edge, near where a villager managed to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Conserved Installations

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a series of displays depicting the most impactful events in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to care for their produce; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but more than twice as many people (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is expected to