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A brook so low you barely got your feet wet divided a village for more than four decades. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, fields and stunning vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their past. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal split, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals gathering in the very same tavern, visiting the very same place of worship and enrolling their children to the same school.

Post-War Division

Then came the second world war. The moment they came, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they took over the complete village, setting up their headquarters in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were required to display identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could continue to see each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side signaling and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for responding “same to you” to a western resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I was told narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his professional career developing it. Locals were asked at an early stage about how much wall they wished to preserve. They selected a portion on the west edge, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

2 guard towers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed special permission to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Background

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number persons (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit annually, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed interest.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and large parking lot – is likely to