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A stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their past. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Telling the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals drinking in the identical tavern, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete village, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as controls increased they were obliged to present identification, even though all knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was added to a Stasi monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a West German villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a portion on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident managed to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the border was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two observation towers are preserved in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to care for their crops; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never the pair, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not supported the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and big vehicle area – is expected to