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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people set about commemorating their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

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

Past Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the same inn, going to the same religious building and enrolling their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the complete community, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the stream. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could continue to view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident managed to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director details the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their produce; the partner could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit annually, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is expected to