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An creek so low you barely got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of local people set about commemorating their past. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, attending the same church and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

After the War Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their command in a building on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present identity papers, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Locals were polled early on about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, the director lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required particular approval to look after their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but not the two, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and big car park – is expected to