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An brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started documenting their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the way of the residents gathering in the very same pub, visiting the very same church and sending their young ones to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat across the stream. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to display identification, although everyone understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the east side signaling and shouting were banned. A female resident was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western local who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they wished to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but over double the number people (exceeding 300) died seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly 15,000 visited annually, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Current Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and sizable car park – is likely to