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An brook so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a community for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people started memorialising their past. The project is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, attending the same religious building and placing their children to the identical school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Soviet forces erected wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the entire hamlet, establishing their command in a house on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a time, locals could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present ID, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. One woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a western villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his occupational time creating it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wanted to keep. They selected a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a villager managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the border was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s history. As we move, the director details the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their crops; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but not both, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the most frequently, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and looking after their fields. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and sizable parking lot – is likely to