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An brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents socializing in the very same pub, going to the very same church and sending their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to display identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side signaling and shouting were banned. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western edge, near where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the border was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 observation towers are preserved alongside a series of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but not the pair, for fear that they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of two times more persons (exceeding 300) died seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big parking lot – is probable to