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A stream so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their heritage. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the very same inn, attending the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to withdraw back over the brook. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were required to display identification, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were asked in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to keep. They opted for a portion on the western edge, close to where a villager managed to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of guard towers are maintained alongside a set of displays depicting the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers required particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but never both, lest they attempted to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most frequently, but over twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is probable to