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An stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

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

Past Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, attending the very same church and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the stream. For a while, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls increased they were obliged to show identification, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a Stasi watch list for answering “back at you” to a West German resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled early on about how much barrier they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the west perimeter, near where a villager was able to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are preserved together with a series of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the rules: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their fields; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but over two times more persons (well over 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They did not supported the communist regime nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 came to see every year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and large car park – is likely to