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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own wall was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals gathering in the identical inn, going to the very same religious building and placing their children to the same school.

After the War Split

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the entire community, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to show ID, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a western resident who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the west edge, close to where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic dates in the village’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they sought to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither backed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and large car park – is probable to