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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own division was torn down, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their heritage. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals gathering in the very same tavern, going to the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, villagers could continue to cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to display identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how what length of structure they desired to preserve. They selected a portion on the west fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Installations

Two watchtowers are preserved in addition to a collection of displays showing the most dramatic events in the village’s history. As we walk, the director enumerates the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but not the pair, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. About 15,000 came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is probable to