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An brook so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their heritage. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the locals drinking in the identical pub, visiting the same church and placing their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as controls increased they were forced to display identity papers, even though everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wanted to keep. They chose a section on the Bavarian fringe, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are preserved in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They neither supported the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit each year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Modern Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and large vehicle area – is likely to