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A stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was opened, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their history. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the residents socializing in the identical inn, going to the very same religious building and placing their children to the same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they took over the whole hamlet, setting up their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were required to present identification, although everyone knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side waving and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Installations

A pair of guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of displays depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Farmers needed special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but not the two, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but more than two times more people (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big vehicle area – is likely to