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A stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began memorialising their past. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel division, which tore households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the same pub, going to the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a while, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to display identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was added to a Stasi watch list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Locals were asked early on about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They selected a stretch on the western edge, close to where a local resident was able to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than double the number people (more than 300) died attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is probable to