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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started commemorating their past. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the very same pub, attending the very same religious building and placing their young ones to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they took over the whole village, creating their command in a building on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German local who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life building it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the border was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they sought to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, movie theater and large parking lot – is probable to