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An brook so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their heritage. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals socializing in the identical tavern, attending the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the same school.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to pull back back over the stream. For a time, locals could continue to jump across, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section wall they desired to keep. They selected a section on the western perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Installations

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the spouse could use the combine harvester but not both, for fear that they attempted to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over double the number individuals (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited annually, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, cinema room and big car park – is expected to