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An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own division was opened, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers began commemorating their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who endured the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Background

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the residents gathering in the identical inn, going to the same place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they seized the entire hamlet, creating their command in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could still cross over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to show ID, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could continue to see each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and shouting were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his working life creating it. Residents were polled early on about how much barrier they wished to keep. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian fringe, near where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the border was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are maintained in addition to a collection of displays illustrating the most impactful events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but not the two, lest they sought to flee. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Context

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95% of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between two political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor fought it, the director clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit each year, optical devices in hand, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, film screening area and sizable parking lot – is probable to