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An brook so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of local people started commemorating their heritage. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, visiting the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russians installed timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole hamlet, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to show identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were banned. A local woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but not the pair, lest they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more people (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. About 15,000 visited annually, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to