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A stream so low you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

A few months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of residents started memorialising their heritage. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the villagers who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the same tavern, attending the very same church and sending their young ones to the very same school.

After the War Split

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to show ID, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were prohibited. One woman was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a portion on the west fringe, near where a villager managed to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the border was significantly fortified.

Maintained Installations

Two guard towers are conserved alongside a series of displays illustrating the most impactful dates in the community’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents needed specific authorization to look after their produce; the partner could work the harvesting machine but never both, lest they sought to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but more than double the number persons (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of destination. About 15k visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and big parking lot – is expected to