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A creek so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

A few months after their own division was opened, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their history. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an brutal separation, which ripped relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

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

Historical Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the residents gathering in the very same tavern, visiting the same church and sending their kids to the same school.

Post-War Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Russians put up wood stakes by the creek. For a annual period they seized the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a building on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw back over the stream. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were forced to show ID, although everyone knew who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Border Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side waving and calling out were banned. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a western local who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted much of his working life creating it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how much barrier they desired to maintain. They opted for a section on the west fringe, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 observation towers are preserved alongside a set of exhibits illustrating the most dramatic events in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Robert Lebegern enumerates the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required specific authorization to tend to their produce; the partner could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, for fear that they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over two times more persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or artisans, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, the director states.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Approximately 15,000 visited each year, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Current Changes

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big vehicle area – is probable to