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A stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle 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 enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own wall was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about memorialising their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the residents drinking in the identical inn, visiting the very same church and sending their children to the identical educational institution.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole community, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display identification, although everyone knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wanted to keep. They chose a section on the western perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen details the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but never the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but in excess of two times more persons (exceeding 300) died trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They neither backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About 15k visited each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

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

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is expected to