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A creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Telling the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents drinking in the identical tavern, visiting the identical religious building and sending their children to the identical educational institution.

After the War Division

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the whole village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his working life creating it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they desired to keep. They selected a stretch on the west perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to look after their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, for fear that they attempted to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but over two times more persons (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between two political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They did not supported the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly 15k visited annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to