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A brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their history. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the way of the residents socializing in the same inn, attending the very same church and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete community, creating their headquarters in a building on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to display identification, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were polled early on about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident was able to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Structures

Two watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of displays depicting the most impactful events in the village’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but never both, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many individuals (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is likely to