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An brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started memorialising their past. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches 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 completely finished. Speaking to the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the identical pub, attending the very same religious building and sending their children to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russians erected timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the complete community, establishing their headquarters in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were required to show identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was added to a Stasi surveillance list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the west fringe, adjacent to where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of tableaux depicting the most impactful moments in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to look after their crops; the partner could use the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (more than 300) died seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k visited each year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Current Evolutions

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