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An creek so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers began memorialising their past. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, visiting the very same church and placing their young ones to the same school.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they occupied the complete hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the east side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Locals were consulted early on about how much structure they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the west edge, near where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed special permission to look after their fields; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They neither backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and big vehicle area – is expected to