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An creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of residents began memorialising their heritage. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Telling the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals gathering in the same pub, going to the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were forced to display identity papers, although everyone was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how much wall they wished to keep. They chose a section on the Bavarian fringe, near where a local resident was able to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are conserved alongside a series of displays illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but not the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many individuals (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately 15k came to see each year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and big car park – is expected to