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A brook so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the locals drinking in the same tavern, visiting the very same religious building and sending their children to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the whole community, setting up their control center in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the stream. For a time, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations tightened they were required to present identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were banned. A local woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his working life building it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They selected a section on the western edge, near where a villager managed to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Farmers required special permission to tend to their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but not both, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over twice as many individuals (more than 300) died trying to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. About 15k visited annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is expected to