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An creek so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people set about documenting their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the locals gathering in the very same pub, going to the very same church and enrolling their young ones to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the complete village, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the brook. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to show identity papers, even though all was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. One woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life creating it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west fringe, near where one of their own was able to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to look after their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but not the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than two times more individuals (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. About 15k came to visit each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and large car park – is likely to