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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a village for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers began documenting their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same inn, going to the same religious building and placing their young ones to the very same school.

Following WWII Division

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present identification, although all was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were banned. A local woman was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “likewise” to a western resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Context

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They did not supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big car park – is probable to