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An brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents set about documenting their past. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Speaking to the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an brutal split, which ripped households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the same inn, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russians installed wood stakes by the brook. For a year they occupied the complete village, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were required to show identity papers, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted early on about how much barrier they desired to keep. They selected a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where a villager managed to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Maintained Installations

2 guard towers are maintained alongside a set of displays showing the most impactful events in the community’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but not the pair, in case they sought to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most, but more than two times more persons (more than 300) were killed seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k visited each year, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after unification, the TV show, a television program about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to