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An stream so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals socializing in the identical pub, going to the same church and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were forced to show identification, although everyone understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side waving and yelling were prohibited. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career building it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how much structure they desired to keep. They selected a portion on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the border was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Installations

2 watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of displays showing the most significant dates in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but over two times more persons (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is probable to