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An stream so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own barrier was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

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

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the very same inn, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the identical learning center.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the entire village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as controls increased they were required to show identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could continue to observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted early on about how what length of barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a villager was able to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a set of displays illustrating the most impactful dates in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents needed special permission to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (well over 300) were killed seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, movie theater and large car park – is expected to