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An stream so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their history. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely finished. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the identical inn, attending the identical church and placing their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire community, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions increased they were required to show ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They selected a section on the western fringe, near where a villager managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are conserved together with a series of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the village’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could use the combine harvester but never the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but more than two times more individuals (more than 300) were killed seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About 15k visited each year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big car park – is likely to