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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the same pub, visiting the very same religious building and placing their kids to the very same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the stream. For a year they seized the entire hamlet, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were required to present ID, although everyone knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could continue to observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian local who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his working life developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how much structure they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the western fringe, close to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

2 watchtowers are preserved together with a collection of displays depicting the most impactful events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they attempted to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to