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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades. By an accident of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own division was torn down, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers began commemorating their heritage. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk did not stand in the path of the locals drinking in the very same inn, going to the identical religious building and placing their kids to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Russians put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a time, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls increased they were required to show ID, although all understood who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wanted to preserve. They chose a stretch on the west fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are conserved alongside a series of displays depicting the most significant events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but in excess of twice as many persons (more than 300) were killed attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Current Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable car park – is expected to