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A brook so low you scarcely got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by coniferous woods, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a group of villagers started commemorating their past. The project is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Addressing the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which tore households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Past Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and counting them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the same inn, attending the same place of worship and sending their kids to the identical school.

After the War Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. The moment they came, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the complete village, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to show ID, although each person knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was erected, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were banned. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “same to you” to a Bavarian local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to preserve. They opted for a stretch on the Bavarian edge, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Conserved Structures

2 observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of displays showing the most significant events in the village’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen enumerates the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers required special permission to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Background

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany ran nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but over twice as many persons (more than 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. the director informs me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the uncertain territory between two political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor fought it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a television program about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is expected to