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An creek so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents drinking in the identical tavern, attending the identical place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the very same school.

After the War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians installed wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the complete village, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to present identity papers, although all was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a western local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were asked early on about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They selected a section on the west fringe, near where a villager succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits depicting the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to care for their crops; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but never the two, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (more than 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. About 15k visited each year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and large parking lot – is probable to