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An stream so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started memorialising their past. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

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

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals socializing in the identical inn, going to the very same religious building and enrolling their children to the same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire hamlet, establishing their command in a building on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the brook. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, even though everyone understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a western villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I was told narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to keep. They chose a portion on the Bavarian fringe, near where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Structures

Two observation towers are conserved together with a set of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, the director lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed specific authorization to look after their produce; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (well over 300) were killed attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and large vehicle area – is probable to