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A stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of residents began commemorating their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the way of the residents drinking in the same tavern, attending the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the whole community, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to pull back back over the stream. For a time, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls increased they were obliged to present identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could continue to observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a villager managed to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved together with a set of displays depicting the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers required special permission to tend to their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but more than double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not supported the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15k visited each year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large vehicle area – is expected to