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A creek so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started memorialising their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, visiting the same church and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the creek. For a year they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to withdraw back over the brook. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to display identity papers, even though all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian local who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Villagers were consulted early on about how what length of wall they desired to keep. They opted for a stretch on the western perimeter, near where one of their own managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Structures

2 watchtowers are conserved in addition to a collection of displays showing the most significant dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but in excess of twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand visited every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big car park – is expected to