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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their past. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the locals socializing in the very same pub, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the brook. For a year they seized the complete village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were forced to display identification, although each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how how long a section wall they desired to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a villager was able to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Structures

A pair of watchtowers are maintained in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most significant events in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director informs me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. About 15k came to see annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and big parking lot – is expected to