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A stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about commemorating their past. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the very same tavern, visiting the same religious building and enrolling their children to the identical learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the whole community, establishing their headquarters in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to pull back across the brook. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the western edge, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Preserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are preserved together with a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed special permission to care for their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the pair, in case they tried to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (more than 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About 15k came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big parking lot – is probable to