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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers started memorialising their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the identical inn, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their kids to the same school.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters 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 back over the stream. For a while, residents could continue to cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display identification, although all understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his occupational time developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the western perimeter, near where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of tableaux showing the most impactful dates in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, in case they sought to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but over double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director informs me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. About 15k visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and big car park – is expected to