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A stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers set about commemorating their history. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk never stood in the way of the locals drinking in the very same inn, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the complete village, establishing their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to show identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how how long a section wall they desired to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western edge, adjacent to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of displays showing the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required particular approval to care for their crops; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, in case they attempted to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but more than double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About 15k visited every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and large vehicle area – is probable to