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An stream so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their history. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Addressing the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the locals gathering in the identical tavern, going to the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

After the War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a year they took over the whole community, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw back over the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to display ID, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to maintain. They selected a stretch on the western fringe, close to where one of their own managed to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

2 observation towers are preserved in addition to a set of exhibits illustrating the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than two times more individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. About 15k came to see annually, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is likely to