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A stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their heritage. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity never stood in the way of the locals socializing in the very same inn, visiting the identical place of worship and sending their young ones to the same school.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were required to show ID, even though all was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. A female resident was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled early on about how how long a section wall they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west edge, near where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the border was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Structures

Two observation towers are preserved in addition to a collection of displays showing the most significant moments in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the partner could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over two times more persons (more than 300) died seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big vehicle area – is likely to