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An creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about documenting their past. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, going to the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, locals could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the western perimeter, close to where a villager succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most significant dates in the community’s past. As we walk, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their crops; the partner could use the harvesting machine but not both, for fear that they sought to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but more than twice as many people (well over 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to