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A brook so low you barely got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own barrier was opened, and before their nation had reunified in 1990, a group of local people set about documenting their history. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth remembrance of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an brutal division, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

Bygone Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the designation Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the residents gathering in the identical pub, going to the same religious building and enrolling their young ones to the same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces installed timber poles by the stream. For a annual period they occupied the complete hamlet, establishing their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the brook. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to display identification, even though all was aware who they were, and to return at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The locals could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were banned. A female resident was placed on a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who greeted her “good new year”.

Museum Development

I was told narratives such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Residents were polled early on about how much barrier they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the western perimeter, close to where a local resident was able to get away in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the border was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a set of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the village’s past. As we walk, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the border. Rural residents required particular approval to tend to their fields; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) died seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in their hands, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Modern Changes

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and big car park – is probable to