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An brook so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of residents began commemorating their heritage. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel split, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the residents socializing in the very same inn, going to the very same church and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire community, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to retreat across the creek. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to present identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could continue to view each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much wall they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the western edge, close to where a villager succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was significantly fortified.

Conserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are conserved alongside a series of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required special permission to care for their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than twice as many people (well over 300) died trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between two political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to