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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own division was opened, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers set about memorialising their past. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents socializing in the very same inn, going to the identical religious building and placing their kids to the same learning center.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, locals could continue to jump across, though as controls increased they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wanted to keep. They opted for a section on the west fringe, close to where one of their own managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number people (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They neither supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. About 15k visited annually, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big parking lot – is probable to