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An stream so low you scarcely got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and prior to their nation had become one in 1990, a group of residents set about commemorating their heritage. The effort is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore families asunder and turned local residents into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the same inn, visiting the same church and placing their children to the identical school.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Russian troops put up wood stakes by the brook. For a year they occupied the complete community, creating their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw back over the creek. For a while, locals could still hop over, though as limitations increased they were required to present identification, even though everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent much of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They chose a stretch on the Bavarian edge, close to where one of their own succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the border was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Structures

2 observation towers are maintained alongside a set of tableaux showing the most dramatic moments in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their crops; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but not the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Soldiers stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than double the number individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between two political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and sizable vehicle area – is likely to