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An stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a village for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their heritage. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical pub, attending the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the same educational institution.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the whole village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to present identity papers, although everyone understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for answering “back at you” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section structure they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the west perimeter, near where one of their own managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the border was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are conserved together with a set of tableaux showing the most impactful events in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but in excess of two times more individuals (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not supported the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and big car park – is expected to