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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of local people started documenting their heritage. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the same pub, attending the very same place of worship and placing their kids to the same learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back back over the brook. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were forced to display identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for responding “same to you” to a western local who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how much wall they desired to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western fringe, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux illustrating the most impactful events in the community’s history. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not both, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is likely to