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A creek so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about memorialising their history. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

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

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the same inn, visiting the same place of worship and placing their young ones to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they took over the complete village, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Locals were asked early on about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They chose a section on the west perimeter, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to care for their crops; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Context

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than two times more people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and large vehicle area – is likely to