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An creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

Several months after their own wall was opened, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their past. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel separation, which tore relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their kids to the same school.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the stream. For a year they occupied the entire community, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to show ID, despite the fact that everyone understood who they were, and to come back at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was constructed, with mines, tank traps and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a western resident who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated much of his professional career creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they desired to preserve. They chose a portion on the west edge, near where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the border was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are maintained in addition to a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic events in the village’s history. As we move, Lebergen details the rules: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Context

The frontier between West Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) were killed seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adapted to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited annually, optical devices in possession, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Present-Day Developments

The opening of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is expected to