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A stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the same inn, attending the same church and enrolling their children to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the whole community, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to retreat back over the stream. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to display identification, although everyone knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were banned. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the western perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

Two guard towers are preserved together with a set of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents needed special permission to tend to their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit every year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is expected to