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An creek so low you barely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the locals gathering in the very same tavern, visiting the same religious building and placing their young ones to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole community, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as controls increased they were required to present identity papers, even though each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to observe each other by ascending hills, but on the east side waving and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life developing it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they desired to keep. They selected a stretch on the western perimeter, close to where one of their own was able to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are preserved together with a set of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but not the pair, for fear that they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (well over 300) were killed attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They neither supported the socialist government nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big car park – is likely to