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A creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began documenting their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk never stood in the way of the locals gathering in the very same inn, attending the very same church and sending their children to the identical learning center.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the whole community, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to display identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were polled early on about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Installations

Two guard towers are maintained together with a set of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they tried to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more people (exceeding 300) died trying to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and big car park – is probable to