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An stream so shallow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about memorialising their heritage. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for giving all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, attending the very same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the same school.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the whole village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could continue to jump across, though as limitations increased they were forced to show ID, even though all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a large part of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled early on about how how long a section wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the border was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 guard towers are preserved alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but not the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany stretched nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the greatest, but more than twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see every year, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to