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An brook so low you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their past. 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 inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, visiting the same church and sending their children to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the complete village, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the brook. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were forced to display identification, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German local who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his occupational time building it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where a local resident was able to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two guard towers are maintained alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to care for their crops; the partner could use the harvesting machine but never the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but over two times more persons (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is likely to