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An stream so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers began documenting their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely ready. Telling the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the very same pub, going to the same place of worship and sending their children to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a year they seized the entire village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were required to show ID, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a western resident who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his occupational time developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are conserved in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most impactful events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen details the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to care for their crops; the spouse could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They neither backed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is probable to