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An creek so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their history. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals gathering in the identical inn, going to the same place of worship and sending their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they took over the whole community, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces urged them to pull back across the brook. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to display ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career creating it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the western edge, near where a villager was able to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed special permission to care for their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but never the two, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Context

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many people (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is expected to