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An stream so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their past. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore households apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals socializing in the very same tavern, attending the very same religious building and sending their kids to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the whole village, creating their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the brook. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could continue to see each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a western resident who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western fringe, close to where a villager managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are maintained in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Lebergen details the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but not both, lest they tried to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. About 15,000 came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big car park – is likely to