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A brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers began memorialising their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely ready. Telling the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same tavern, attending the identical church and enrolling their children to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they took over the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans urged them to withdraw back over the brook. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how much structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a section on the west edge, near where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved together with a series of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but not the two, for fear that they attempted to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over twice as many individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and big vehicle area – is expected to