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A brook so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a village for more than four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the misfortune to straddle the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a collection of local people set about commemorating their past. The work is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which tore families apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for assigning all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the residents gathering in the same tavern, visiting the very same place of worship and placing their young ones to the same learning center.

After the War Separation

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they occupied the entire community, establishing their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a time, residents could continue to cross over, though as restrictions became stricter they were required 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 sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for answering “back at you” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

It was related to me accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life developing it. Villagers were polled in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wished to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the west edge, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved alongside a series of displays illustrating the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the border. Rural residents had to obtain special permission to care for their crops; the partner could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most frequently, but over double the number persons (well over 300) lost their lives trying to pass over it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director tells me that 95% of escape attempts did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their fields. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand came to see annually, optical devices in hand, to look – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh attention.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, cinema room and sizable car park – is likely to