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A stream so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of residents began documenting their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the same pub, going to the very same religious building and sending their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the whole community, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat back over the creek. For a while, residents could continue to cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to show identification, even though each person understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time building it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wished to preserve. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

Two guard towers are maintained alongside a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the village’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required special permission to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they sought to escape. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but over double the number persons (more than 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, the director explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to see each year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big vehicle area – is expected to