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An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about commemorating their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Telling the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the very same pub, going to the identical place of worship and placing their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the brook. For a year they occupied the whole community, establishing their control center in a building on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw across the stream. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to display identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was put on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a western villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told stories including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated much of his professional career building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west edge, near where a villager managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are preserved together with a collection of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but not the two, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They did not backed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is probable to