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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of residents began memorialising their past. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely finished. Speaking to the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals socializing in the identical pub, visiting the same church and enrolling their kids to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the stream. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the brook. For a time, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were required to display ID, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a western local who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his working life creating it. Residents were asked early on about how what length of wall they wished to preserve. They selected a section on the west edge, near where one of their own was able to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two watchtowers are conserved alongside a set of displays illustrating the most impactful events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to care for their produce; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but more than two times more individuals (well over 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit each year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and big car park – is probable to