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An stream so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Telling the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals gathering in the very same pub, attending the same religious building and placing their children to the identical learning center.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the brook. For a year they occupied the whole village, establishing their command in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back back over the creek. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display ID, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They chose a stretch on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Installations

2 watchtowers are conserved in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to care for their fields; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but never the two, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. About 15k came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Current Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and large car park – is expected to