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An brook so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the identical pub, visiting the same place of worship and placing their kids to the same school.

Post-War Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole community, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to present identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the east side signaling and calling out were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section structure they wanted to keep. They opted for a section on the western fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the border was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never both, lest they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, 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 persons (well over 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. About 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large car park – is expected to