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A brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people set about commemorating their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Telling the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals socializing in the very same pub, going to the identical religious building and sending their kids to the very same educational institution.

After the War Division

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the entire community, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to retreat back over the creek. For a time, villagers could continue to cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to display identity papers, even though everyone knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west fringe, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are maintained together with a series of tableaux showing the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to look after their fields; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over twice as many people (more than 300) died seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They neither supported the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k visited every year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is expected to