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A stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people started memorialising their past. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the same tavern, visiting the same religious building and sending their kids to the very same school.

Post-War Split

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they seized the whole hamlet, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back back over the stream. For a while, residents could still jump across, though as controls increased they were forced to present identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could continue to observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were asked early on about how how long a section structure they wanted to keep. They opted for a portion on the western fringe, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Conserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved alongside a series of displays illustrating the most impactful events in the village’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but over twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large vehicle area – is likely to