"A creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Modlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall."
"American soldiers called it Little Berlin. Months after their own wall was breached, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people set about memorialising their history. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the fall of the (big) Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Modlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn't quite ready."
Modlareuth is a hamlet of about 50 people divided for over four decades by a shallow creek that became the inner German border. The village straddled Bavaria in West Germany and Thuringia in East Germany, a demarcation that evolved from wooden posts and a fence to a wall. The community had shared institutions before division, including a pub, church and school. Soviet troops established control after the second world war, and American forces occupied the western side, leading to the nickname Little Berlin. Local residents initiated a memorial project that culminated in the German-German Museum Modlareuth, opened officially in October and scheduled to open exhibitions on 9 November.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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