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A stream so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by evergreen groves, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising History

A few months after their own division was opened, and prior to their state had reunified in 1990, a group of residents started documenting their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which ripped families apart and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the way of the locals socializing in the very same tavern, attending the same place of worship and sending their young ones to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they took over the entire hamlet, setting up their command in a building on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a period, villagers could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to display identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was built, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The villagers could continue to see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled early on about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the border was substantially strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are conserved alongside a set of displays illustrating the most dramatic moments in the community’s history. As we walk, the director lists the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over two times more individuals (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. About fifteen thousand came to visit every year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a TV series about a fictional village like Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and big parking lot – is probable to