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A stream so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was marked first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their history. The work is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which pulled families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the manner of the residents socializing in the same pub, going to the identical religious building and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed wooden posts by the brook. For a year they occupied the entire village, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the brook. For a while, residents could continue to cross over, though as limitations tightened they were required to present ID, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the east side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a West German resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I heard stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his working life creating it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they desired to keep. They selected a section on the western edge, near where a villager succeeded to get away in the middle of the night with a climbing device, after which the frontier was heavily strengthened.

Preserved Structures

A pair of watchtowers are preserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most significant moments in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director details the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed special permission to look after their fields; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but more than two times more people (more than 300) were killed trying to pass over it in countryside regions than in the big city. the director tells me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to visit each year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a imaginary hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to