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An brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers began memorialising their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, attending the very same place of worship and placing their kids to the same school.

After the War Division

Next arrived the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the entire hamlet, creating their control center in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were forced to present ID, even though all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told accounts such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section wall they wished to keep. They selected a stretch on the west fringe, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Structures

2 watchtowers are maintained alongside a collection of tableaux showing the most impactful events in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the regulations: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, lest they sought to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of two times more people (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to see each year, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Current Changes

The launch of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and large parking lot – is likely to