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A brook so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a village for in excess of four decades. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a group of residents set about commemorating their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Telling the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled households asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, attending the same religious building and placing their young ones to the same school.

Following WWII Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the complete community, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a while, villagers could continue to cross over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to show identification, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi watch list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled early on about how much structure they desired to preserve. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, near where a villager succeeded to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Structures

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a collection of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the village’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed special permission to care for their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the pair, in case they sought to make a run for it. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) died attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big car park – is likely to