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An creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a village for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started memorialising their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the identical pub, going to the identical church and placing their children to the very same learning center.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the complete village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the brook. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to display identity papers, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were asked early on about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the west fringe, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Conserved Installations

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a set of displays depicting the most significant moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, the director enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their fields; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, in case they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over two times more individuals (more than 300) died seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They did not backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, optical devices in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to