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A brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same pub, going to the very same place of worship and enrolling their children to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire village, setting up their command in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his working life developing it. Locals were polled early on about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the west fringe, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, the director lists the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) died trying to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither supported the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, led to new attention.

Current Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big car park – is probable to