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An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers started memorialising their heritage. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Addressing the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the very same tavern, attending the very same place of worship and placing their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they came, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions became stricter they were required to present identity papers, even though all was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still see each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian local who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

It was related to me narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a section on the west fringe, close to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the frontier was heavily fortified.

Maintained Installations

2 watchtowers are preserved in addition to a series of exhibits depicting the most impactful dates in the community’s past. As we walk, the director details the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their produce; the partner could work the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they tried to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their fields. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and big parking lot – is expected to