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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Addressing the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the same inn, visiting the same religious building and sending their young ones to the very same school.

Post-War Split

Then came the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the whole village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat back over the creek. For a time, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show ID, although all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. A local woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the west fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Structures

Two guard towers are maintained in addition to a set of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but not both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over double the number individuals (more than 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to visit each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and large car park – is likely to