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An brook so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers started memorialising their heritage. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the very same tavern, attending the identical religious building and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they took over the whole community, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back across the creek. For a time, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to show identity papers, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for responding “likewise” to a western local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western edge, near where a villager was able to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed special permission to look after their produce; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not both, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but in excess of two times more persons (well over 300) died attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to