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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own division was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers began documenting their heritage. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Telling the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same pub, attending the very same religious building and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, creating their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to retreat back over the creek. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are preserved in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but more than double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit each year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to