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A creek so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own division was torn down, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of residents began commemorating their history. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the path of the residents gathering in the identical tavern, visiting the very same church and enrolling their children to the same school.

After the War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a year they took over the complete community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to pull back across the stream. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, even though everyone understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A local woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a West German villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his working life building it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where one of their own succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

A pair of guard towers are conserved together with a set of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required particular approval to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but never the pair, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and sizable car park – is likely to