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A brook so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a community for more than four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by pine forests, fields and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had reunified in 1990, a group of residents set about documenting their history. The effort is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite finished. Addressing the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an brutal division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Historical Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house best known for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the very same tavern, going to the same church and sending their children to the very same school.

Post-War Split

Next arrived the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Russians installed wooden posts by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the entire village, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were obliged to present ID, even though everyone understood who they were, and to return at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The residents could continue to observe each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side waving and shouting were banned. A female resident was put on a Stasi watch list for responding “same to you” to a western local who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told narratives including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his professional career building it. Villagers were asked early on about how what length of barrier they wanted to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, close to where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the border was significantly fortified.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are preserved together with a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the community’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern enumerates the rules: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required specific authorization to care for their fields; the husband or wife could work the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they tried to escape. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that 95% of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. About 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary village similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, movie theater and large parking lot – is probable to