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A brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by evergreen groves, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of residents began memorialising their past. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the same inn, attending the very same place of worship and sending their children to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians erected wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw back over the stream. For a time, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present identity papers, despite the fact that all knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi watch list for answering “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian edge, near where a local resident managed to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

2 observation towers are preserved in addition to a series of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s past. As we move, the director enumerates the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required special permission to look after their produce; the husband or wife could operate the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, in case they attempted to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and documented the most frequently, but in excess of double the number individuals (more than 300) died trying to cross it in rural areas than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They nor did they backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 came to visit annually, binoculars in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is probable to