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An stream so low you barely got your feet wet split a village for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their heritage. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Telling the locals who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the same tavern, going to the identical place of worship and enrolling their children to the same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire community, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a Stasi watch list for replying “likewise” to a western local who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

It was related to me narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Locals were consulted early on about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They selected a stretch on the west fringe, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the community’s past. As we walk, the director lists the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents needed specific authorization to care for their produce; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of double the number persons (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They did not backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15k visited each year, viewing tools in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and sizable car park – is likely to