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A brook so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of local people began commemorating their past. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, attending the same church and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians erected wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete village, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the stream. For a time, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could continue to view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side waving and calling out were prohibited. One woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a local resident was able to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was heavily fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are preserved together with a collection of displays illustrating the most significant dates in the community’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their produce; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k visited every year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to