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A brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of residents started documenting their history. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, visiting the same religious building and sending their kids to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they seized the entire village, setting up their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, locals could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were forced to show identity papers, although everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a West German local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a collection of displays showing the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to care for their crops; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but never the two, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but more than double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between two political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. About 15k visited every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused new interest.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to