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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about memorialising their heritage. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, going to the very same place of worship and sending their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the whole hamlet, creating their command in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the stream. For a while, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were required to show identity papers, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much structure they wanted to keep. They selected a section on the western fringe, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 observation towers are maintained alongside a set of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to