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An creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own wall was opened, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents began memorialising their past. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals socializing in the same inn, going to the same church and placing their kids to the very same school.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians installed wooden posts by the stream. For a annual period they took over the whole village, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were forced to display identity papers, although everyone knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section wall they wanted to keep. They opted for a portion on the west fringe, near where one of their own was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

2 watchtowers are conserved in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed special permission to care for their fields; the partner could work the combine harvester but not the two, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Background

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is probable to