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A stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their history. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Addressing the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the very same tavern, visiting the same religious building and placing their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the brook. For a year they seized the complete village, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the brook. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to present ID, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how much wall they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the western perimeter, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved in addition to a series of tableaux illustrating the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but not the two, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over two times more individuals (well over 300) died trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is likely to