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A brook so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was torn down, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people began memorialising their past. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, going to the same religious building and enrolling their children to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the creek. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his working life creating it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a section on the Bavarian fringe, near where a villager managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits depicting the most dramatic moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but never both, lest they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) died attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Current Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is likely to