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A brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers started memorialising their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

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

Bygone Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the residents gathering in the identical inn, visiting the same religious building and sending their children to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to pull back back over the stream. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They chose a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Maintained Buildings

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a set of tableaux depicting the most significant moments in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, the director enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and big car park – is expected to