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A creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a hamlet bordered by pine forests, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Preserving Historical Events

Several months after their own barrier was torn down, and before their country had become one in 1990, a group of residents began documenting their past. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the display was not entirely prepared. Speaking to the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the community spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, attending the same religious building and sending their young ones to the same learning center.

Following WWII Separation

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they came, the Russians put up wooden posts by the creek. For a year they seized the entire village, creating their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were required to present identification, despite the fact that everyone knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still view each other by climbing hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. One woman was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “back at you” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

I heard narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent much of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much barrier they wanted to keep. They selected a stretch on the western perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was significantly strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved alongside a collection of exhibits depicting the most significant moments in the village’s history. As we walk, the director details the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their fields; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but never both, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Wider Context

The border between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between two political systems by staying low-profile and looking after their land. They did not supported the socialist government nor opposed it, the director explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited each year, optical devices in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary community like Mödlareuth, resulted in new attention.

Current Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to