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An stream so shallow you barely got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own barrier was torn down, and even before their country had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people started memorialising their heritage. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely finished. Addressing the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled families asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Even at its founding in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same pub, attending the very same place of worship and enrolling their children to the identical learning center.

Post-War Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed wood stakes by the creek. For a year they seized the complete village, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could continue to cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display identity papers, although each person knew who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could continue to observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his professional career creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how much structure they desired to maintain. They chose a portion on the Bavarian edge, near where a local resident was able to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

Two watchtowers are preserved in addition to a set of displays depicting the most dramatic events in the community’s past. As we walk, the director lists the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to tend to their produce; the partner could use the agricultural equipment but never the pair, in case they tried to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They did not supported the socialist government nor resisted it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. About 15k came to visit annually, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Modern Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and sizable car park – is expected to