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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own division was torn down, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about commemorating their history. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the identical inn, attending the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the whole village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were banned. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to keep. They chose a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain special permission to tend to their crops; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but never both, in case they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but in excess of two times more persons (well over 300) died trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and big parking lot – is probable to