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An stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers started documenting their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Past Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the identical tavern, attending the identical place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the same school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they seized the complete village, establishing their control center in a house on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans convinced them to retreat across the creek. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were forced to show identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was put on a East German secret police watch list for answering “back at you” to a western local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his working life creating it. Residents were consulted early on about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a section on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux illustrating the most significant events in the community’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed particular approval to care for their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but never both, lest they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but over double the number persons (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Roughly 15k came to see each year, binoculars in possession, to look – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to