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A brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet separated a village for in excess of four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of residents set about commemorating their past. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely finished. Telling the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the residents drinking in the same tavern, going to the identical religious building and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, villagers could continue to cross over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to present identity papers, although everyone understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Development

It was related to me narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved together with a set of displays depicting the most impactful events in the village’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but never both, for fear that they sought to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but more than two times more people (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor fought it, the director states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About 15k visited annually, optical devices in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and large vehicle area – is expected to