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A creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own division was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their heritage. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the identical pub, visiting the identical religious building and placing their children to the identical educational institution.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to present ID, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were asked early on about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

2 guard towers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About fifteen thousand came to see each year, optical devices in possession, 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 unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and big parking lot – is expected to