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An stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Mini Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about commemorating their history. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Addressing the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the very same pub, visiting the same place of worship and placing their kids to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to present identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to keep. They selected a stretch on the west edge, near where one of their own succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a set of exhibits illustrating the most impactful dates in the community’s past. As we move, the director enumerates the rules: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed special permission to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but not the two, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than two times more persons (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between two political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand visited annually, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and large car park – is expected to