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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was opened, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers started documenting their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which tore households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the same pub, attending the identical church and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the brook. For a year they seized the entire hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a while, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to display ID, although all knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a stretch on the west edge, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of displays illustrating the most dramatic dates in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but never the two, for fear that they sought to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over double the number persons (more than 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k visited each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is expected to