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A creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers began memorialising their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the identical pub, visiting the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they took over the entire hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to retreat across the stream. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to present identity papers, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his working life developing it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to keep. They chose a stretch on the west fringe, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but never the two, for fear that they attempted to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but in excess of two times more persons (well over 300) died seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between two political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About 15,000 came to see annually, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to