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An brook so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about memorialising their history. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the residents gathering in the same inn, attending the very same church and enrolling their young ones to the identical educational institution.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete community, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations tightened they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wanted to maintain. They selected a stretch on the west perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the border was heavily fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most significant moments in the village’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to tend to their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but over double the number people (more than 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They neither backed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Current Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to