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A creek so low you barely got your feet wet divided a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people set about memorialising their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents socializing in the very same inn, visiting the same place of worship and placing their children to the very same learning center.

After the War Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a year they took over the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were forced to show ID, although each person understood who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian local who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to keep. They chose a section on the west edge, adjacent to where one of their own was able to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the border was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a set of displays depicting the most dramatic moments in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required particular approval to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is expected to