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An creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of local people set about documenting their heritage. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, attending the very same religious building and sending their children to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russians erected wooden posts by the brook. For a year they seized the complete community, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, residents could continue to jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to show identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could continue to see each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they desired to maintain. They selected a stretch on the western edge, near where a local resident succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Maintained Installations

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their crops; the partner could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Context

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number people (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They did not backed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to see every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Modern Changes

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