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An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents set about memorialising their past. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals gathering in the same pub, going to the same church and sending their children to the very same learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the brook. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to display identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the east side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a Stasi watch list for replying “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career building it. Villagers were consulted early on about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They selected a section on the western fringe, close to where one of their own managed to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Installations

Two guard towers are conserved alongside a collection of displays depicting the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the two, in case they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to see each year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Modern Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is probable to