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An brook so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Months after their own division was breached, and before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers set about 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 begin operations. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the locals who endured the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped households asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Even at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family best known for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the identical inn, going to the same church and enrolling their children to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, creating their headquarters in a building on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display ID, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Border Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The locals could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I heard narratives like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his professional career building it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident was able to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Installations

2 observation towers are maintained in addition to a set of exhibits depicting the most dramatic dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but not the two, for fear that they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but over double the number individuals (well over 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director informs me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to living in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, the director explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited each year, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, led to new interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is likely to