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A stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of local people began documenting their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the same inn, attending the very same place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the identical learning center.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they occupied the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were required to display identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side waving and shouting were banned. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a western local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life developing it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They chose a section on the western edge, near where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of tableaux depicting the most impactful moments in the community’s past. As we move, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required special permission to care for their produce; the partner could operate the combine harvester but never both, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, movie theater and large car park – is likely to