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A creek so narrow you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers began commemorating their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for giving all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the residents gathering in the identical tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the whole village, creating their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw across the creek. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to present identity papers, even though everyone knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the west perimeter, near where one of their own succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 observation towers are maintained together with a series of displays depicting the most significant moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, the director lists the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed specific authorization to tend to their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but not both, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. About 15,000 came to see each year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is probable to