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An creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Telling the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same inn, going to the identical religious building and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the stream. For a year they occupied the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to pull back back over the creek. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to show identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they wanted to preserve. They selected a stretch on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Structures

2 guard towers are preserved together with a set of exhibits illustrating the most impactful events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization 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. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director informs me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is likely to