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An creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own division was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their past. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the identical pub, visiting the identical place of worship and placing their young ones to the identical school.

After the War Division

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a time, residents could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could continue to view each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was put on a Stasi watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to keep. They selected a portion on the western fringe, close to where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are conserved together with a set of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to see annually, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Changes

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