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An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own division was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their past. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, attending the very same place of worship and sending their young ones to the very same school.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they took over the whole village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the creek. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to show identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section structure they wanted to maintain. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager managed to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

Two observation towers are conserved together with a series of displays depicting the most significant events in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to tend to their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They neither supported the East German authorities nor fought it, the director states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is probable to