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A stream so low you hardly got your feet wet split a community for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own division was breached, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of residents began memorialising their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely finished. Telling the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the residents gathering in the very same pub, going to the same place of worship and sending their children to the same school.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they seized the whole village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw across the creek. For a time, residents could continue to hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to show ID, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard narratives including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career building it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section barrier they wished to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Conserved Installations

2 guard towers are conserved together with a series of exhibits illustrating the most significant moments in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they attempted to escape. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They neither supported the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to