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An stream so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers began commemorating their history. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the path of the locals socializing in the identical inn, visiting the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the identical school.

After the War Split

Then came the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as controls increased they were required to display ID, even though each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were forbidden. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were consulted early on about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western fringe, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the border was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are conserved together with a series of displays depicting the most significant dates in the community’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, in case they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Context

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but more than two times more individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 came to see every year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is likely to