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An stream so shallow you barely got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their heritage. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the residents socializing in the very same inn, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their children to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians erected wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they seized the entire hamlet, creating their command in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the creek. For a while, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own was able to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Conserved Installations

Two observation towers are preserved in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to tend to their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than twice as many individuals (more than 300) died seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Current Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to