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An stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started memorialising their past. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents gathering in the same tavern, going to the very same place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians erected wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a building on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the creek. For a period, locals could continue to cross over, though as limitations increased they were required to display identity papers, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wanted to keep. They selected a section on the western perimeter, near where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are preserved in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but in excess of two times more people (exceeding 300) died seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between two political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a type of site of interest. About 15,000 visited annually, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and big parking lot – is likely to