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A creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a village for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely finished. Telling the villagers who endured the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

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

Past Origins

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the same inn, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire community, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to pull back back over the creek. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display ID, even though each person knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still observe each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time building it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the Bavarian fringe, near where a villager managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

Two observation towers are maintained in addition to a collection of exhibits depicting the most significant events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director enumerates the rules: no one could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they attempted to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most frequently, but more than double the number people (well over 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by staying low-profile and looking after their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to visit annually, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after unification, the television series, a TV series about a fictional hamlet like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is likely to