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A stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their heritage. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, visiting the identical church and placing their children to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the complete village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to retreat across the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls tightened they were forced to display identity papers, although everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a western resident who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Locals were polled early on about how much barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a stretch on the west edge, near where one of their own succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are conserved together with a set of exhibits showing the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the spouse could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, in case they tried to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

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