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An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers began memorialising their history. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the identical pub, visiting the same church and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole hamlet, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the brook. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to present identity papers, although each person knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a western resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life creating it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to keep. They selected a section on the Bavarian edge, near where one of their own managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are conserved alongside a series of displays depicting the most impactful moments in the village’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to see every year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and large car park – is likely to