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An brook so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents began memorialising their past. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Telling the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the same pub, going to the same religious building and placing their kids to the very same school.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

It was related to me stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his occupational time creating it. Residents were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Installations

Two watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the village’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The border between West Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of two times more people (more than 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15k visited annually, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to