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An brook so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Telling the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

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

Historical Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals socializing in the identical tavern, attending the identical place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russians erected wooden posts by the creek. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat back over the brook. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show ID, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the east side waving and calling out were banned. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were asked early on about how much structure they wanted to maintain. They chose a portion on the west fringe, close to where one of their own managed to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Installations

Two watchtowers are preserved in addition to a collection of tableaux illustrating the most impactful events in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, the director lists the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers required specific authorization to care for their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many people (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and big car park – is expected to