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A stream so low you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their history. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Addressing the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the very same inn, attending the identical church and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the whole hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were banned. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to keep. They opted for a section on the Bavarian fringe, near where a villager managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved together with a set of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, the director lists the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but more than twice as many people (well over 300) died attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. About 15k came to see each year, optical devices in their hands, 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 reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to