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A creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began documenting their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the residents drinking in the very same inn, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the whole community, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where a local resident was able to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

2 observation towers are conserved in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed special permission to look after their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of site of interest. About 15,000 came to see annually, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and large car park – is expected to