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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the same tavern, attending the same place of worship and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the whole hamlet, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to show ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to maintain. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager was able to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we walk, Lebergen details the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but over twice as many individuals (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and big car park – is probable to