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A stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents drinking in the identical pub, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, locals could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to present identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved alongside a set of displays showing the most significant events in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of two times more people (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 visited annually, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to