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A creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their past. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Addressing the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Historical Context

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk never stood in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the identical inn, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they seized the entire hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they wished to keep. They opted for a portion on the western edge, near where a local resident was able to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the border was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required special permission to look after their crops; the partner could use the combine harvester but not both, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) died seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k came to see every year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is expected to