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A stream so low you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started memorialising their history. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the path of the residents socializing in the very same pub, attending the same place of worship and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the complete village, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the brook. For a time, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were obliged to show identification, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were forbidden. One woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time developing it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of structure they wished to preserve. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a villager managed to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained in addition to a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to