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A brook so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span 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 barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started documenting their history. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the identical tavern, attending the identical church and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to show identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still see each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a West German villager who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to maintain. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own was able to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the border was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are preserved together with a collection of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s past. As we walk, the director details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but more than twice as many persons (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit annually, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is expected to