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An brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was opened, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a group of villagers started commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the identical pub, going to the same church and placing their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Division

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the whole hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw back over the stream. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were required to present ID, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his professional career building it. Locals were asked early on about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They selected a portion on the western edge, close to where a local resident succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are maintained together with a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to care for their produce; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) were killed attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They did not supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to see annually, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big car park – is expected to