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An stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their past. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Museum of German Division Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk never stood in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the identical tavern, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they seized the complete village, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the stream. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present identification, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were polled early on about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They selected a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a set of exhibits depicting the most impactful events in the community’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but never the pair, in case they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. About 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and large car park – is expected to