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An creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own barrier was opened, and prior to their state had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about commemorating their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the display was not completely ready. Speaking to the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Historical Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for assigning all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the way of the residents socializing in the same pub, going to the identical church and enrolling their young ones to the same educational institution.

After the War Division

Then came the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops put up wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the whole village, setting up their control center in a house on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The Americans persuaded them to pull back back over the brook. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as controls increased they were obliged to display ID, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Border Controls

Then, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still observe each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his professional career creating it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They chose a section on the west perimeter, adjacent to where a villager managed to flee in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Structures

Two guard towers are preserved in addition to a series of displays depicting the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: not a single person could approach 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers needed specific authorization to care for their produce; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but over two times more people (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or artisans, who adjusted to dwelling in the grey zone between two belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Tourism

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. About 15k came to see every year, binoculars in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh interest.

Current Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is probable to