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An stream so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own division was breached, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Telling the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

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

Bygone Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the locals gathering in the very same pub, attending the very same place of worship and placing their children to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire community, setting up their command in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could continue to cross over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, even though everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the west fringe, close to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Installations

2 guard towers are maintained alongside a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their produce; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never the two, in case they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately 15k came to see annually, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and big parking lot – is probable to