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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents set about documenting their heritage. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals gathering in the same inn, visiting the same religious building and sending their kids to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a year they seized the complete community, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a while, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to show identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were banned. One woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life developing it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the western fringe, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are conserved alongside a set of displays showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The border between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but more than two times more people (well over 300) died seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. Roughly 15k visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is likely to