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A brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own division was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore relatives into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity never stood in the manner of the residents drinking in the same pub, visiting the same religious building and placing their kids to the identical school.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the global conflict. The moment they came, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the creek. For a year they seized the complete community, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the brook. For a time, villagers could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were banned. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a West German resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard accounts such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were consulted in the initial phases about how much structure they wished to keep. They chose a stretch on the western fringe, near where one of their own was able to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Installations

2 guard towers are preserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, the director lists the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers needed particular approval to care for their produce; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but over two times more persons (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 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 national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and big car park – is likely to