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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people began memorialising their history. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German 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 prepared. Speaking to the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity never stood in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical pub, going to the identical place of worship and placing their children to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a West German villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted early on about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 observation towers are maintained together with a collection of displays showing the most significant events in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to look after their fields; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and big parking lot – is expected to