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A brook so low you hardly got your feet wet split a community for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people set about documenting their heritage. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the way of the locals gathering in the very same inn, attending the same church and sending their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the whole hamlet, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, locals could continue to cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identification, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to view each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were forbidden. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western local who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his professional career creating it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they desired to keep. They opted for a section on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where a villager succeeded to escape in the middle of the night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was heavily fortified.

Conserved Installations

2 observation towers are maintained together with a series of exhibits illustrating the most significant dates in the community’s history. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they tried to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but more than two times more individuals (well over 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between two belief systems by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of destination. Roughly 15k visited each year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Current Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and large vehicle area – is likely to