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A brook so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own wall was opened, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents set about commemorating their history. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Past Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the residents gathering in the same tavern, visiting the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the whole community, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show ID, although all understood who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The residents could still see each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a Stasi watch list for responding “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Locals were asked early on about how much structure they wanted to preserve. They selected a portion on the western perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the border was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but not both, in case they sought to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or skilled workers, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to see annually, binoculars in their hands, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, film screening area and large car park – is likely to