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A creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a group of villagers set about memorialising their heritage. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the identical tavern, visiting the very same religious building and sending their young ones to the very same school.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the whole village, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could continue to jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to present identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the east side waving and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They selected a stretch on the west fringe, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than twice as many people (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly 15k visited each year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is expected to