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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about commemorating their past. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Telling the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the very same tavern, going to the identical place of worship and sending their children to the very same learning center.

After the War Split

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russians put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire community, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were required to display ID, although all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time creating it. Locals were polled early on about how much structure they wished to maintain. They chose a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Installations

2 watchtowers are maintained in addition to a series of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their produce; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they tried to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is expected to