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A creek so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about memorialising their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity never stood in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, attending the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians put up wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, establishing their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were forced to show identification, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side waving and shouting were banned. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how much barrier they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the west perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained in addition to a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to