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An creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades of time. By an accident of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began documenting their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the locals gathering in the identical pub, visiting the very same church and sending their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the whole village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were required to display ID, even though all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with landmines, tank traps and guard posts. The residents could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted much of his working life building it. Locals were asked early on about how much wall they desired to preserve. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, near where a local resident was able to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are maintained together with a collection of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the rules: nobody could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but not the two, in case they sought to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number individuals (well over 300) died attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their fields. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Modern Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, film screening area and large car park – is probable to