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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for over four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their history. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled families asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Right from its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the very same pub, attending the identical church and placing their children to the same educational institution.

After the War Separation

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they took over the complete hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were forced to show identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were banned. A female resident was put on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “likewise” to a West German villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how much barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western fringe, adjacent to where a villager managed to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, the director details the regulations: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of attempts to flee failed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the uncertain territory between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and sizable car park – is likely to