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An creek so low you hardly got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of topography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own division was opened, and even before their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants socializing in the same inn, going to the identical religious building and placing their children to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they came, the Russians erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the complete community, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the brook. For a period, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations tightened they were forced to show ID, although all knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a West German villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I heard stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Locals were polled early on about how much structure they wished to preserve. They opted for a portion on the west fringe, adjacent to where a villager was able to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved together with a set of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but never the pair, lest they tried to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but more than twice as many individuals (exceeding 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of destination. Approximately 15,000 came to visit every year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is expected to