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A brook so low you barely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades. By an accident of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Telling the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk never stood in the way of the residents socializing in the identical pub, visiting the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Then came the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they took over the whole community, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw back over the brook. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to display ID, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the western edge, adjacent to where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Structures

Two watchtowers are preserved in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the combine harvester but not both, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 visited annually, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is expected to