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A stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of local people began memorialising their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents drinking in the same inn, attending the same religious building and enrolling their young ones to the very same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to display ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “likewise” to a West German local who said her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career building it. Villagers were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they wanted to maintain. They chose a section on the west edge, adjacent to where a villager was able to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic events in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) were killed seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They did not backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Roughly 15k visited each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and large car park – is expected to