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An creek so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the same inn, visiting the very same place of worship and sending their young ones to the very same school.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the whole community, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the brook. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police watch list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much barrier they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the west perimeter, near where a villager was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are preserved together with a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, in case they sought to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but in excess of two times more people (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. About 15k came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is expected to