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An creek so low you barely got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people began memorialising their history. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the same tavern, going to the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a year they seized the entire village, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to present identification, although everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German local who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a local resident was able to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but not the two, for fear that they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and big vehicle area – is likely to