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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own division was opened, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about memorialising their heritage. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

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

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the residents gathering in the same tavern, visiting the identical religious building and placing their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, locals could continue to jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were required to show identification, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was put on a East German secret police watch list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the western fringe, near where one of their own was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of displays showing the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen details the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their fields; the spouse could work the combine harvester but never both, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but in excess of two times more persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. About fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is expected to