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An stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people began commemorating their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical pub, going to the identical religious building and placing their kids to the very same educational institution.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russians installed wood stakes by the brook. For a year they took over the entire village, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to pull back across the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were required to show identification, although each person knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time building it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a portion on the west edge, near where one of their own managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was heavily fortified.

Maintained Buildings

2 observation towers are preserved together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant moments in the village’s past. As we walk, the director details the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their produce; the partner could work the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of two times more people (exceeding 300) died trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not supported the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to visit each year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and big parking lot – is expected to