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A brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents started memorialising their history. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

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

Bygone Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the very same tavern, attending the very same place of worship and sending their children to the same educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they took over the complete hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to show identification, even though all knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could continue to see each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a Stasi watch list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much wall they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their produce; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they attempted to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) were killed seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15k visited annually, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is expected to