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A brook so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents set about documenting their past. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the same inn, going to the identical religious building and placing their kids to the identical school.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a time, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career building it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the border was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of guard towers are maintained together with a collection of displays showing the most significant moments in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is likely to