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A stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers started memorialising their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary 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 the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the very same pub, going to the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the identical learning center.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the complete village, establishing their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a time, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to show ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could continue to view each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a West German resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time creating it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to tend to their produce; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, in case they tried to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Context

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) died attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They neither backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Modern Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to