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A creek so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their history. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall 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 early October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the way of the locals gathering in the same inn, attending the very same religious building and sending their children to the same learning center.

After the War Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a year they took over the complete hamlet, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were required to display identity papers, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted early on about how how long a section structure they desired to preserve. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where a villager managed to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, subsequently the border was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of watchtowers are maintained alongside a series of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the village’s past. As we stroll, the director details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Context

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over twice as many persons (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They nor did they supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit each year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary community resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is probable to