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An brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers started commemorating their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Addressing the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

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

Past Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents drinking in the same pub, going to the very same church and enrolling their young ones to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the stream. For a year they seized the whole village, creating their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to pull back across the stream. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to present ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for answering “likewise” to a West German villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where one of their own was able to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the border was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Installations

2 observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required special permission to look after their crops; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of two times more persons (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to see annually, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to