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A brook so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own division was opened, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people began commemorating their past. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal division, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, attending the same church and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the whole village, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat across the stream. For a while, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present ID, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Locals were consulted early on about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, near where a local resident managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Structures

2 guard towers are conserved together with a collection of displays depicting the most significant dates in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but over two times more people (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit annually, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to