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An brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet separated a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers set about memorialising their history. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the identical inn, going to the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same school.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire village, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to pull back across the stream. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to show identity papers, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the east side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they wished to keep. They chose a section on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where one of their own was able to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Installations

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Context

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. About fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big car park – is expected to