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A stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own wall was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the locals socializing in the same tavern, visiting the same religious building and placing their kids to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the creek. For a year they seized the whole hamlet, creating their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to present ID, although all knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They selected a portion on the west fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are conserved together with a set of tableaux illustrating the most significant events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their produce; the partner could use the combine harvester but never both, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but over double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and large car park – is probable to