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An stream so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents set about memorialising their heritage. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the locals socializing in the very same tavern, going to the same place of worship and sending their children to the same school.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, setting up their command in a building on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, locals could continue to hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were required to present ID, even though all understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The locals could continue to see each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the west edge, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are conserved together with a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s history. As we move, the director enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required special permission to tend to their crops; the partner could work the combine harvester but never the pair, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Background

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is likely to