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An creek so low you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of villagers set about memorialising their heritage. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Telling the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage best known for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity did not stand in the path of the inhabitants gathering in the identical pub, attending the very same religious building and placing their young ones to the very same school.

Following WWII Split

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the entire village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to pull back across the brook. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were obliged to show identification, even though each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could continue to see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a Stasi watch list for replying “same to you” to a western villager who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his professional career building it. Residents were consulted early on about how much barrier they wanted to maintain. They selected a stretch on the west edge, close to where one of their own was able to flee in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved together with a collection of tableaux depicting the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed particular approval to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they sought to escape. Military personnel kept guard.

Larger Context

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but over double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They did not supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. Approximately fifteen thousand came to visit every year, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Current Changes

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is probable to