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A creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the very same pub, going to the same place of worship and sending their children to the same educational institution.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the entire community, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how much barrier they wanted to maintain. They chose a section on the western perimeter, close to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved in addition to a collection of displays illustrating the most dramatic moments in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but not the pair, lest they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Background

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is probable to