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A stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers began memorialising their history. The project is soon to reach completion: 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 publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the very same pub, going to the very same religious building and placing their children to the same school.

Following WWII Split

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the entire village, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to display identification, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where a local resident managed to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was substantially fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are preserved alongside a set of displays showing the most impactful dates in the village’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but not both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but in excess of double the number persons (more than 300) died seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 visited each year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and big car park – is expected to