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An stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was opened, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about memorialising their heritage. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the locals socializing in the same pub, attending the same church and enrolling their children to the identical learning center.

After the War Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire community, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to pull back back over the stream. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for replying “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is likely to