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A brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers started commemorating their history. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

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

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents drinking in the same tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the creek. For a year they seized the whole village, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian local who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked early on about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two observation towers are conserved together with a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain special permission to tend to their produce; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than twice as many persons (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between two political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and big parking lot – is likely to