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A stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started commemorating their past. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, attending the very same church and sending their young ones to the identical learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the whole community, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the brook. For a while, locals could continue to hop over, though as limitations increased they were forced to display ID, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the western edge, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved together with a set of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to look after their fields; the partner could operate the combine harvester but not the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. About fifteen thousand visited annually, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is probable to