You notice the castles the minute you arrive in Gerbstedt, a quiet little town in Germany’s Saxony-Anhalt state, an hour’s drive from Leipzig. Elaborately constructed miniature castles, replete with tiny windows, shrubs, and dwellers in historical attire, greet you at different spots around town—outside the supermarket, in front of the church, on people’s front lawns. It’s an open-air museum of sorts spanning the entire area. “I built my first castle in 1949, after the war had ended,” says Günther Beinert, the 87-year-old creator of these miniature works. He describes breaking…
