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A creek so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Several months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same pub, visiting the same place of worship and sending their children to the same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a year they occupied the whole village, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to present identification, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The locals could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side waving and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his occupational time developing it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a section on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the border was substantially fortified.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux depicting the most impactful moments in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but not the two, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the greatest, but over double the number persons (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They did not backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is expected to