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An creek so narrow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by evergreen groves, fields and breathtaking views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops called it Small Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Months after their own division was breached, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents started commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely ready. Telling the villagers who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore families asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its male descendants the title Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the residents socializing in the same tavern, attending the identical church and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Then came the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Russians installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to withdraw across the brook. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as controls increased they were forced to display ID, despite the fact that each person was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and yelling were banned. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a West German resident who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard accounts including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how what length of structure they desired to keep. They selected a stretch on the west fringe, close to where a local resident was able to flee in the darkest hours with a ladder, following which the border was heavily fortified.

Maintained Installations

2 guard towers are maintained in addition to a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Lebergen lists the rules: no one could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the combine harvester but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Wider Background

The border between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but more than two times more persons (more than 300) died trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern reminds me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For sightseers, however, the settlement became a kind of destination. Roughly 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Present-Day Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and big vehicle area – is expected to