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An stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people began documenting their past. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely finished. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the locals gathering in the very same inn, visiting the same church and placing their young ones to the identical school.

After the War Division

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire community, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to show identification, although each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could continue to view each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for replying “likewise” to a West German local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his occupational time developing it. Locals were consulted early on about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the border was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 guard towers are maintained together with a collection of exhibits showing the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but in excess of twice as many people (more than 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They did not backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand visited each year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and big car park – is expected to