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An stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their heritage. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the same pub, visiting the very same place of worship and sending their young ones to the same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to pull back back over the stream. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were required to show identification, although each person knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career developing it. Locals were polled early on about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a villager was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Installations

2 observation towers are preserved together with a series of displays showing the most impactful dates in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Farmers had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than two times more people (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Community Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to see annually, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new curiosity.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is expected to