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An brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was torn down, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers began memorialising their history. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Telling the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the locals socializing in the identical inn, visiting the identical church and enrolling their kids to the same school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete village, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a time, villagers could continue to jump across, though as controls tightened they were required to present identification, although each person was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could continue to view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side waving and calling out were prohibited. One woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Residents were asked early on about how what length of structure they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the western fringe, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the border was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

2 watchtowers are conserved together with a set of exhibits depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Farmers needed special permission to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and big parking lot – is likely to