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An stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started documenting their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same inn, attending the very same place of worship and placing their children to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they took over the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls increased they were forced to present identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how how long a section barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the border was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to care for their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but not both, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is expected to