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An stream so low you barely got your ankles wet split a community for in excess of four decades. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents began documenting their history. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents gathering in the same inn, visiting the same place of worship and sending their kids to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to display ID, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his professional career developing it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They chose a stretch on the west perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a set of tableaux depicting the most dramatic dates in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but over twice as many people (well over 300) died trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They did not backed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Present-Day Changes

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