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A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began commemorating their past. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the same pub, attending the same religious building and sending their children to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the complete community, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back back over the creek. For a while, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to present identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could continue to see each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. One woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a western local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the western fringe, close to where a villager succeeded to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved together with a collection of exhibits illustrating the most significant events in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but over two times more people (more than 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a type of site of interest. About 15k came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and big car park – is probable to