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An stream so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started documenting their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

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

Historical Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, going to the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the very same school.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present ID, although each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “back at you” to a West German resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his occupational time developing it. Residents were asked early on about how much barrier they desired to keep. They selected a portion on the western edge, near where a villager succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant moments in the community’s past. As we move, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to look after their produce; the partner could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Context

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but in excess of double the number persons (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit annually, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to