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An stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their heritage. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the same tavern, going to the same place of worship and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the brook. For a year they took over the entire village, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat back over the creek. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, even though all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west edge, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two observation towers are preserved together with a collection of displays showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to look after their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but over twice as many persons (exceeding 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big vehicle area – is expected to