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An stream so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began memorialising their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

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

Historical Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, visiting the same church and sending their young ones to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to display identification, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were forbidden. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a West German resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to keep. They selected a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 observation towers are conserved in addition to a collection of exhibits illustrating the most impactful events in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to look after their crops; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but never the two, in case they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many people (well over 300) died attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a type of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big vehicle area – is expected to