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A brook so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the very same inn, visiting the very same church and placing their kids to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole village, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were prohibited. One woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a western resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wanted to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a villager was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was heavily fortified.

Conserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are preserved in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but not both, in case they sought to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but more than double the number people (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in hand, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to