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An stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of local people began commemorating their heritage. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

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

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the identical inn, visiting the same place of worship and placing their kids to the identical educational institution.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a year they seized the entire hamlet, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who said her “good new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how much structure they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved in addition to a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the village’s past. As we walk, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required special permission to care for their produce; the partner could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, in case they tried to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over double the number persons (well over 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to see each year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to