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A creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers began memorialising their history. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the residents gathering in the same pub, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Then came the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the creek. For a year they occupied the complete community, creating their control center in a building on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the stream. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to show ID, although each person knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life developing it. Locals were asked early on about how what length of structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west perimeter, near where one of their own was able to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but not both, in case they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than two times more persons (exceeding 300) died trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. About 15,000 visited each year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and sizable car park – is expected to