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An creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet split a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own division was breached, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their past. The work is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Addressing the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth order. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the locals gathering in the same pub, visiting the identical religious building and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the stream. For a twelve months they took over the whole village, creating their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to pull back across the stream. For a period, villagers could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to display identity papers, even though all knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The locals could continue to view each other by ascending elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were consulted at an early stage about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a portion on the Bavarian perimeter, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Conserved Structures

Two observation towers are preserved together with a collection of displays showing the most dramatic dates in the hamlet’s past. As we move, Robert Lebegern lists the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Farmers required particular approval to tend to their crops; the partner could use the harvesting machine but not both, for fear that they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than twice as many individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About 15k came to visit every year, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

25 years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary village like Mödlareuth, caused renewed curiosity.

Modern Changes

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is probable to