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A brook so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was torn down, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same pub, going to the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the same school.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to display identification, although each person was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could continue to observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. One woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a West German local who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were asked early on about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They selected a stretch on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the border was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits depicting the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to look after their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but more than double the number people (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. About 15k visited annually, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to