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An brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet divided a settlement for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers began memorialising their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the locals who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the locals socializing in the identical pub, going to the same church and enrolling their kids to the identical learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the World War II. The moment they came, the Russians erected wooden posts by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the entire community, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as controls tightened they were obliged to show ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The villagers could still observe each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. One woman was added to a Stasi watch list for replying “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career building it. Residents were polled at an early stage about how much structure they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the west fringe, near where a local resident was able to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was heavily fortified.

Conserved Structures

2 guard towers are preserved alongside a set of displays showing the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we move, the director enumerates the regulations: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but never the two, for fear that they tried to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the GDR ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many people (exceeding 300) were killed attempting to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of destination. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit each year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in new interest.

Present-Day Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is expected to