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An creek so low you barely got your feet wet split a village for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own barrier was breached, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents set about memorialising their past. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the locals drinking in the same pub, visiting the same church and sending their children to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the complete village, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to show identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian local who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two observation towers are conserved together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant dates in the community’s history. As we move, Lebergen details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but more than double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large car park – is expected to