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A brook so low you barely got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began documenting their heritage. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same pub, going to the very same church and sending their kids to the same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a building on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to show ID, although everyone was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his working life creating it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they wanted to maintain. They chose a section on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the border was heavily fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved together with a set of exhibits illustrating the most significant dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed special permission to tend to their produce; the partner could work the combine harvester but not the pair, in case they attempted to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (more than 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Modern Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and large vehicle area – is likely to