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An brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their heritage. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same inn, attending the very same religious building and placing their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the complete community, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to present identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I was told accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to preserve. They selected a section on the west fringe, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the border was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Current Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big vehicle area – is probable to