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An creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of residents began commemorating their past. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the locals gathering in the same tavern, attending the identical place of worship and sending their young ones to the same educational institution.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the complete village, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, locals could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to display ID, even though each person knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side waving and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I was told accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life building it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They chose a stretch on the western fringe, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many people (more than 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big vehicle area – is probable to