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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents began memorialising their history. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Telling the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the same pub, going to the identical religious building and enrolling their children to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians installed timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to show identity papers, even though each person was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for answering “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They selected a section on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Installations

2 guard towers are conserved together with a series of displays depicting the most dramatic dates in the village’s history. As we move, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to care for their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but never both, for fear that they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but over two times more individuals (well over 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and large car park – is likely to