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An stream so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a community for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents began commemorating their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the same pub, going to the very same church and sending their kids to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. The moment they came, the Russians erected wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the complete village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to cross over, though as controls increased they were required to present identity papers, although each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a western villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how much structure they wished to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west fringe, near where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are maintained in addition to a series of tableaux showing the most impactful moments in the community’s history. As we move, the director lists the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but not the two, in case they tried to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over double the number individuals (more than 300) died trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15k visited annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to