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A stream so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal division, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

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

Bygone Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the quirk never stood in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the identical pub, attending the identical place of worship and placing their kids to the identical learning center.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. Immediately after they appeared, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a year they occupied the entire hamlet, creating their headquarters in a building on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were required to show identity papers, although each person understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The residents could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was added to a Stasi watch list for answering “same to you” to a western resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his working life creating it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of wall they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the western fringe, near where a local resident managed to escape in the darkest hours with a ladder, subsequently the border was significantly strengthened.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are preserved together with a series of exhibits depicting the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents required specific authorization to care for their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but never the pair, in case they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

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 commemorated and documented the most frequently, but in excess of two times more individuals (exceeding 300) died attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between two political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15k visited every year, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is likely to