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An brook so narrow you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades of time. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their country had become one in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their heritage. The effort is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel separation, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Bygone Background

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for bestowing all its male descendants the title Heinrich and labeling them in order by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the same tavern, attending the same religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the creek. For a year they seized the complete community, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, villagers could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were forced to display identity papers, although all understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still observe each other by scaling hills, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was added to a Stasi monitoring list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to maintain. They selected a section on the western edge, adjacent to where a local resident managed to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was heavily fortified.

Maintained Structures

A pair of watchtowers are conserved together with a collection of exhibits showing the most dramatic dates in the community’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to look after their produce; the spouse could use the harvesting machine but not both, lest they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than two times more individuals (exceeding 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that almost all of escape attempts did not succeed.

Community Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers 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 farms. They neither supported the East German authorities nor resisted it, Lebegern states.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. About 15k came to see every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is probable to