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An stream so low you barely got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers began documenting their heritage. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Telling the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most famous for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the same inn, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the World War II. The moment they appeared, the Russians put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the whole hamlet, setting up their control center in a building on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could continue to cross over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to show identification, although each person understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his working life building it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the western edge, adjacent to where a villager was able to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits depicting the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but over two times more people (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director informs me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is probable to