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An creek so low you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about commemorating their past. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the identical inn, visiting the very same place of worship and placing their children to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they seized the complete village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a time, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to display identification, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are preserved alongside a set of displays depicting the most impactful dates in the community’s past. As we move, the director details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They did not backed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. About 15k visited each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is probable to