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An brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents began commemorating their heritage. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals gathering in the identical inn, going to the identical religious building and sending their young ones to the very same educational institution.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the entire community, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to display identity papers, although all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian fringe, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are preserved in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. About 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is probable to