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An stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their heritage. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same pub, attending the very same church and placing their kids to the identical school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the stream. For a year they occupied the entire community, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, locals could continue to jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were required to display identification, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “likewise” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how how long a section structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west fringe, close to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are preserved alongside a set of displays depicting the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we walk, the director lists the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but not the pair, in case they attempted to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Broader Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but in excess of twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between two political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their land. They did not backed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to see each year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and big vehicle area – is probable to