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An creek so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers set about memorialising their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Historical Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, going to the same church and enrolling their young ones to the very same school.

After the War Split

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they seized the entire village, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to present identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how much wall they wanted to maintain. They selected a stretch on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their produce; the spouse could use the combine harvester but never both, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but in excess of two times more people (more than 300) died attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is probable to