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A stream so low you barely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of residents began memorialising their history. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

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

Past Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the very same inn, visiting the identical church and placing their young ones to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the whole community, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. A local woman was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to keep. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a villager managed to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are conserved alongside a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required particular approval to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, lest they attempted to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Approximately 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is probable to