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An creek so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people started documenting their heritage. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled families into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk did not stand in the path of the locals drinking in the same tavern, going to the identical religious building and sending their young ones to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole hamlet, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show identification, although all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life creating it. Residents were polled early on about how much structure they wished to preserve. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a local resident was able to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

Two observation towers are maintained together with a series of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the village’s past. As we stroll, the director details the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to tend to their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but not the two, lest they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Background

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director informs me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is likely to