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An creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the same tavern, attending the very same church and sending their kids to the same school.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole community, setting up their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to pull back across the creek. For a period, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display ID, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, near where one of their own was able to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved together with a collection of exhibits depicting the most significant events in the village’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but not the pair, for fear that they sought to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but more than double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is likely to