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A brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people set about documenting their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely finished. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the very same inn, going to the same church and sending their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they seized the complete village, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to display ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a section on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager was able to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

Two observation towers are preserved in addition to a collection of tableaux showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but not both, lest they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

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 commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is probable to