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An stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about memorialising their history. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity never stood in the path of the residents socializing in the identical tavern, visiting the very same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the entire hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to present ID, although all understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could continue to see each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his professional career developing it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a villager managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

2 watchtowers are preserved together with a series of tableaux depicting the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, in case they attempted to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Approximately 15k visited annually, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Current Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is expected to