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An brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals gathering in the same inn, going to the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to retreat back over the stream. For a period, residents could continue to jump across, though as controls increased they were required to display identity papers, although everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could continue to view each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for responding “same to you” to a western villager who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his working life developing it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the western edge, near where a local resident succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a series of tableaux showing the most dramatic dates in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to