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A creek so low you barely got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals gathering in the same inn, attending the identical place of worship and placing their children to the identical school.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a year they occupied the entire village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were required to display identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were banned. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a western local who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told stories 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 asked in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to keep. They chose a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Context

The border between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but more than two times more persons (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director informs me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and large vehicle area – is likely to