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An brook so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own division was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people set about commemorating their heritage. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the residents socializing in the very same pub, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the very same school.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, establishing their command in a house on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the stream. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to present ID, even though all knew who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were banned. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a western local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are preserved in addition to a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic dates in the community’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen lists the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but never the two, in case they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but more than double the number persons (well over 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director reminds me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor fought it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large car park – is expected to