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An creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people started commemorating their history. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Addressing the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the same pub, going to the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians erected wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the complete community, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to show identification, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was added to a Stasi monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian edge, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are conserved in addition to a set of displays depicting the most impactful dates in the community’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required particular approval to care for their produce; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but more than double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big vehicle area – is probable to