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An brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own barrier was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers began documenting their history. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the very same pub, visiting the same religious building and placing their young ones to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a year they seized the complete hamlet, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the stream. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as controls tightened they were forced to present identification, even though all knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with explosives, tank traps and watchtowers. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and calling out were forbidden. One woman was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his professional career developing it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they desired to keep. They chose a portion on the western fringe, close to where a villager was able to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are conserved together with a series of tableaux showing the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the spouse could work the combine harvester but not the two, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Context

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Roughly fifteen thousand came to visit each year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is likely to