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A stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents set about documenting their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition 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 exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the very same tavern, going to the same church and enrolling their children to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were required to present identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wanted to maintain. They opted for a section on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of observation towers are conserved together with a set of displays showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they tried to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but in excess of two times more people (well over 300) died seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Roughly 15k came to visit each year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large vehicle area – is likely to