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A stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people started memorialising their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals gathering in the identical inn, going to the identical place of worship and sending their young ones to the same school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the stream. For a year they occupied the complete community, establishing their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to show identity papers, although all was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his working life building it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own was able to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two observation towers are preserved alongside a set of exhibits depicting the most significant events in the community’s past. As we move, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they attempted to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Context

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They did not supported the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and large car park – is expected to