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A stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people set about commemorating their heritage. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which tore households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents socializing in the identical pub, attending the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same school.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show identification, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his working life building it. Residents were polled early on about how much wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the western fringe, near where one of their own was able to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Maintained Installations

A pair of guard towers are maintained together with a set of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s past. As we stroll, the director enumerates the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit annually, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and big car park – is likely to