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A brook so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about commemorating their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the identical tavern, going to the very same religious building and sending their young ones to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the whole village, creating their control center in a building on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to pull back across the stream. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a West German villager who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the western edge, close to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are conserved in addition to a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic events in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but in excess of twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit annually, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to