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An brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people set about documenting their heritage. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk never stood in the way of the locals socializing in the same pub, attending the same place of worship and placing their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, locals could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to show ID, although everyone knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a western local who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his working life developing it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the western fringe, close to where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a series of tableaux illustrating the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we stroll, the director details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to look after their produce; the partner could work the combine harvester but never the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) died trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They did not supported the communist regime nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to