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An brook so low you barely got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their past. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals drinking in the same inn, going to the same church and placing their children to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the creek. For a time, villagers could continue to hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for answering “back at you” to a western local who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section structure they desired to keep. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a villager was able to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the combine harvester but never the pair, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but more than two times more people (well over 300) were killed seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. About 15k came to see annually, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to