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An brook so shallow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely ready. Addressing the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

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

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the same inn, attending the identical church and sending their young ones to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the whole community, creating their headquarters in a house on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as controls increased they were forced to present identification, even though each person understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could continue to observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was added to a East German secret police watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a section on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager managed to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux illustrating the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but more than double the number persons (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They did not supported the socialist government nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Current Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and big vehicle area – is probable to