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A stream so low you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers started commemorating their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

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

Bygone Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their children to the same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they took over the complete community, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, locals could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to display ID, although each person knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how much structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Preserved Installations

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than twice as many individuals (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. About 15k visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to