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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their past. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the identical pub, visiting the very same religious building and placing their kids to the same school.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the stream. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw back over the stream. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to show identification, although all was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a East German secret police watch list for responding “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they wanted to preserve. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, near where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was significantly fortified.

Maintained Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved in addition to a series of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the village’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers required special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Background

The border between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. About fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is expected to