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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers set about documenting their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Telling the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the locals drinking in the very same inn, going to the very same religious building and placing their kids to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display identity papers, even though everyone knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time building it. Villagers were polled early on about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They chose a portion on the Bavarian fringe, near where a local resident managed to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Preserved Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained together with a series of tableaux showing the most significant events in the community’s past. As we move, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but never the pair, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Modern Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and large car park – is likely to