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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people set about memorialising their past. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Past Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents socializing in the same inn, visiting the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the same learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the entire community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to show ID, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were banned. One woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section structure they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of displays depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to tend to their produce; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than double the number people (well over 300) were killed seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, the director explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and large vehicle area – is expected to