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A creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their past. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Telling the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals socializing in the identical tavern, visiting the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

After the War Division

Then came the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the whole community, creating their headquarters in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to pull back across the brook. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were required to show ID, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how much barrier they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the west edge, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux illustrating the most significant dates in the community’s history. As we walk, the director enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their crops; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but never the two, for fear that they sought to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but in excess of two times more persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. About 15k came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable car park – is expected to