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A brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the oddity never stood in the manner of the locals gathering in the very same pub, attending the very same place of worship and placing their children to the same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the entire hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back back over the creek. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are preserved together with a series of tableaux illustrating the most impactful moments in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but over twice as many people (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They did not supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big car park – is probable to