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An brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a village for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their past. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the residents drinking in the identical tavern, attending the very same place of worship and sending their children to the identical learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they seized the complete community, establishing their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to present ID, although each person knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the western edge, close to where a villager was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required specific authorization to look after their produce; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but over twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They did not backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. About 15k came to see each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and big vehicle area – is likely to