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An stream so narrow you barely got your ankles wet split a village for over four decades of time. Because of a chance of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Several months after their own division was opened, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their history. The project is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the path of the locals drinking in the very same pub, attending the very same church and placing their young ones to the same educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Then came the global conflict. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the complete village, setting up their control center in a house on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces persuaded them to withdraw back over the stream. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were forced to present ID, although all understood who they were, and to come back at night.

Escalation of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a wall was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. A female resident was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a western local who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

It was related to me stories like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career creating it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a section on the western fringe, adjacent to where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Preserved Buildings

Two watchtowers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits showing the most significant moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to care for their fields; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, in case they tried to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Larger Context

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than two times more people (more than 300) were killed seeking to cross it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to living in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately fifteen thousand visited each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, film screening area and big parking lot – is expected to