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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers began documenting their past. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents drinking in the identical inn, attending the identical church and sending their children to the identical learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to show identity papers, although everyone understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wanted to keep. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a set of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen details the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, in case they tried to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They did not backed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit each year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and sizable car park – is probable to