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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers began documenting their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the way of the locals drinking in the identical tavern, going to the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the creek. For a year they took over the complete community, creating their control center in a house on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the stream. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as controls increased they were obliged to display identification, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of structure they desired to keep. They selected a stretch on the western edge, close to where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the two, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but in excess of double the number people (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They did not backed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. About 15k came to visit annually, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is probable to