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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started memorialising their heritage. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk never stood in the path of the residents gathering in the identical tavern, attending the identical church and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians erected timber poles by the creek. For a year they seized the whole community, creating their headquarters in a building on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted early on about how much structure they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian edge, near where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a set of displays depicting the most significant moments in the village’s past. As we move, the director enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to care for their crops; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit annually, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh interest.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and big car park – is expected to