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A creek so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals gathering in the identical tavern, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans urged them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to show identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his working life creating it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they desired to keep. They selected a section on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a villager managed to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Installations

Two watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant moments in the village’s history. As we move, Lebergen lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) died attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a type of site of interest. Roughly 15k visited every year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and large vehicle area – is expected to