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A stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began memorialising their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped households asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the very same tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and sending their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the entire community, setting up their control center in a building on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the brook. For a time, villagers could continue to hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to show identification, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could continue to see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a western villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they desired to keep. They chose a portion on the western perimeter, near where one of their own managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Structures

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to care for their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but in excess of double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to see each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and big parking lot – is probable to