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An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started memorialising their past. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the very same inn, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the entire village, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who said her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career building it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could work the combine harvester but never the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of two times more persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and big vehicle area – is likely to