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A stream so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was breached, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their history. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the locals gathering in the identical pub, going to the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russians installed wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the complete village, creating their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the creek. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to display identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how much barrier they wished to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux showing the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to look after their crops; the partner could use the combine harvester but never both, for fear that they sought to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the grey zone between two political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. About 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to