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A brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started commemorating their history. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the locals gathering in the very same inn, going to the very same church and sending their young ones to the identical school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete community, creating their control center in a building on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to pull back back over the brook. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to show identification, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were banned. One woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the west edge, close to where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a series of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to care for their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but over double the number people (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director informs me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and sizable car park – is expected to