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An stream so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was opened, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their history. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, visiting the identical place of worship and sending their kids to the identical educational institution.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the whole community, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the brook. For a while, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to present ID, although everyone knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his working life developing it. Villagers were asked early on about how much structure they wanted to keep. They selected a stretch on the west edge, near where a villager was able to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are preserved together with a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, the director states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, cinema room and big car park – is expected to