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A creek so low you barely got your ankles wet split a village for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents set about memorialising their history. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel division, which tore households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the same tavern, attending the identical church and placing their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the brook. For a year they seized the complete village, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to show ID, although everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the west perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Structures

2 watchtowers are preserved together with a collection of tableaux illustrating the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but not the two, lest they attempted to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but more than twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither backed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of destination. About fifteen thousand visited annually, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and big car park – is probable to