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A stream so low you barely got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular views, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about commemorating their history. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal division, which tore households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the manner of the inhabitants drinking in the identical tavern, going to the very same religious building and enrolling their kids to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they came, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a year they seized the complete community, creating their headquarters in a building on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to retreat back over the creek. For a time, locals could continue to cross over, though as limitations increased they were required to display identification, even though all knew who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could continue to view each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and calling out were prohibited. One woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a West German local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to preserve. They selected a section on the west perimeter, close to where a local resident succeeded to escape in the dead of night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was substantially fortified.

Preserved Installations

Two guard towers are maintained alongside a set of displays showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: nobody could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to care for their fields; the spouse could work the agricultural equipment but never both, in case they tried to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but more than twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They neither backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand came to see every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

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