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An stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about memorialising their past. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Telling the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, attending the very same religious building and placing their children to the very same learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they took over the complete community, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The locals could continue to see each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a western resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Conserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and sizable car park – is probable to