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A stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their country had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers started memorialising their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which tore households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Historical Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the path of the residents gathering in the identical inn, attending the identical place of worship and placing their young ones to the identical learning center.

Post-War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they took over the entire community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a time, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were obliged to present identity papers, even though each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the west fringe, adjacent to where one of their own managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 guard towers are preserved in addition to a set of tableaux showing the most impactful events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they attempted to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but over two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is probable to