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A stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had become one in 1990, a assembly of residents began memorialising their history. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the manner of the residents gathering in the identical tavern, going to the same church and enrolling their young ones to the identical school.

After the War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the brook. For a year they seized the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to pull back across the stream. For a period, locals could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show ID, although each person knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could continue to view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were banned. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time developing it. Residents were consulted early on about how much structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the western edge, near where a local resident was able to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved alongside a series of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but not both, in case they attempted to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but more than twice as many people (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, the director explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see each year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – 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, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Current Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, film screening area and large parking lot – is probable to