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A brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers set about commemorating their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the very same pub, attending the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Split

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the complete community, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to show identification, although all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, close to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Installations

2 watchtowers are maintained together with a series of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we walk, the director lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and large parking lot – is expected to