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A stream so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about commemorating their history. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely ready. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk never stood in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the identical tavern, attending the identical place of worship and sending their children to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the whole community, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back back over the brook. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to display identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side signaling and calling out were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the western fringe, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the border was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Installations

Two watchtowers are preserved together with a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they sought to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is likely to