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An stream so low you barely got your feet wet split a village for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers began documenting their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, visiting the identical church and placing their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the complete village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to pull back across the brook. For a while, villagers could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were required to show identification, although everyone knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his working life creating it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are conserved in addition to a series of displays depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required particular approval to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they attempted to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over twice as many persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k came to see each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big vehicle area – is likely to