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An creek so low you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents set about commemorating their past. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and sending their children to the same school.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to retreat back over the creek. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to present ID, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a western resident who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They selected a section on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Structures

Two guard towers are preserved in addition to a set of displays depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but never both, in case they sought to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) were killed attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k visited annually, binoculars in hand, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and sizable car park – is expected to