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An stream so low you barely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers began commemorating their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Telling the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same tavern, attending the very same church and placing their young ones to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they seized the whole community, setting up their control center in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to retreat across the creek. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to present identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and calling out were prohibited. One woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

2 guard towers are preserved together with a set of displays depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to