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An stream so low you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same tavern, going to the very same religious building and sending their children to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russians erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire community, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show ID, even though everyone understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I was told accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a series of tableaux illustrating the most impactful events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. About 15k came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is probable to