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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for in excess of four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began memorialising their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which tore families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the identical tavern, going to the very same church and sending their young ones to the same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to present identification, even though all knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a West German villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux illustrating the most significant events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, the director enumerates the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to look after their produce; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but over two times more people (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see each year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is probable to