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An stream so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their past. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents drinking in the same pub, attending the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the brook. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the stream. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as controls increased they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section wall they desired to keep. They opted for a section on the west edge, near where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of guard towers are preserved together with a collection of displays showing the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain special permission to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but over twice as many people (well over 300) died trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big parking lot – is probable to