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An stream so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a group of villagers began commemorating their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the identical pub, visiting the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the very same school.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a time, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to display identification, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled early on about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They selected a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a villager managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of observation towers are conserved together with a set of tableaux illustrating the most impactful events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, the director lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, in case they sought to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over double the number people (exceeding 300) died attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to visit annually, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is expected to