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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began documenting their heritage. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the very same pub, attending the same place of worship and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat across the stream. For a while, residents could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to present identity papers, even though all was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian local who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section wall they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the west edge, close to where one of their own managed to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are maintained in addition to a set of displays showing the most significant events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required specific authorization to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of twice as many individuals (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between two political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and sizable car park – is likely to