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A stream so low you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began documenting their history. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the residents socializing in the identical pub, attending the identical church and enrolling their children to the very same school.

Post-War Division

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they seized the entire community, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to present identification, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They chose a section on the western fringe, near where a villager succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Installations

Two guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of displays showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to care for their produce; the partner could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Background

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) died seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 came to see every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to