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A creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a community for in excess of four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers started documenting their heritage. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the residents drinking in the same tavern, attending the same religious building and sending their children to the same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians put up timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display ID, although all knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could continue to observe each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to keep. They opted for a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Installations

A pair of observation towers are preserved together with a collection of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents required particular approval to care for their crops; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, lest they tried to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but more than twice as many people (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts failed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large parking lot – is expected to