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An brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own wall was breached, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their past. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Telling the residents who experienced the former times, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the same tavern, visiting the identical religious building and sending their children to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the complete hamlet, establishing their command in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to present ID, despite the fact that all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the east side waving and calling out were prohibited. A female resident was put on a East German secret police monitoring list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated much of his professional career developing it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of structure they desired to maintain. They selected a section on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are maintained together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most dramatic events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to look after their fields; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but never both, in case they attempted to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but over double the number persons (more than 300) were killed trying to traverse it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. the director tells me that 95 percent of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither supported the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. About 15k came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, movie theater and sizable vehicle area – is likely to