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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades. By an accident of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. 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 enclosure and then by a partition. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own division was opened, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their history. The project is close to be completed: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Speaking to the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals socializing in the identical tavern, visiting the same place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical learning center.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they seized the entire community, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were obliged to display identification, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were banned. A local woman was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western edge, close to where a villager was able to get away in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic dates in the community’s chronicle. As we move, Lebergen enumerates the rules: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required particular approval to care for their fields; the partner could use the combine harvester but not the pair, for fear that they attempted to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but over double the number persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their fields. They nor did they endorsed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. About 15k came to see annually, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable car park – is likely to