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A creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals drinking in the identical tavern, attending the same church and sending their children to the same school.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw across the brook. For a time, locals could continue to jump across, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show identification, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, close to where a villager succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the village’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but not the two, for fear that they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than twice as many persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They neither backed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big car park – is likely to