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A stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers started documenting their past. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, going to the same religious building and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete community, creating their control center in a building on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They selected a section on the western fringe, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 guard towers are maintained together with a series of exhibits showing the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required special permission to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to