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A stream so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the identical inn, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire village, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi watch list for replying “likewise” to a western local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career building it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to keep. They selected a stretch on the western edge, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two watchtowers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux showing the most impactful moments in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their produce; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but not both, in case they attempted to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but in excess of double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to see every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large car park – is likely to