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A stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started documenting their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals socializing in the identical tavern, attending the same church and enrolling their children to the same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire community, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to retreat across the stream. For a time, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to show identification, even though each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the east side waving and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted early on about how much wall they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are preserved together with a collection of displays showing the most significant dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but more than two times more people (exceeding 300) died attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see every year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is likely to