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A stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers began memorialising their past. The effort is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Addressing the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family best known for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the manner of the locals gathering in the identical pub, attending the same church and placing their children to the identical learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a year they took over the entire village, setting up their command in a house on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat back over the creek. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as controls became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, although everyone knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for answering “same to you” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his working life creating it. Locals were polled early on about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They chose a section on the west edge, near where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux depicting the most significant events in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers required special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could use the combine harvester but not the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Context

The border between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and documented the most, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) were killed trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, caused renewed attention.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, store, movie theater and sizable car park – is likely to