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A creek so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of local people began documenting their heritage. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Speaking to the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which pulled households asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, attending the very same place of worship and sending their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Russians installed wood stakes by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the complete community, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to retreat back over the creek. For a time, villagers could still hop over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the east side signaling and calling out were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his professional career creating it. Locals were asked early on about how much structure they desired to maintain. They chose a section on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, after which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Installations

A pair of guard towers are conserved in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most impactful moments in the community’s past. As we move, the director details the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but never the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Broader Background

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number people (exceeding 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They neither supported the communist regime nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and big vehicle area – is expected to