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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers began documenting their past. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the same tavern, attending the same church and sending their kids to the same school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire village, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to pull back back over the stream. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a western local who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a stretch on the west perimeter, near where a local resident was able to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved alongside a series of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, the director details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to care for their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and large vehicle area – is probable to