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A brook so low you barely got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Mini Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers started memorialising their history. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity never stood in the path of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, attending the identical place of worship and placing their young ones to the identical learning center.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could continue to observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was put on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of barrier they desired to maintain. They chose a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are conserved alongside a series of displays depicting the most significant events in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed specific authorization to tend to their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the two, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but over double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between two political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big car park – is probable to