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A creek so low you barely got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about commemorating their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its men the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the identical pub, attending the very same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical school.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were required to show identity papers, although each person knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could continue to view each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian local who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his occupational time building it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how much wall they wished to keep. They chose a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are conserved together with a series of tableaux showing the most impactful events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, the director enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required special permission to care for their produce; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but not the pair, in case they attempted to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but in excess of double the number persons (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and large parking lot – is likely to