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An brook so low you scarcely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, meadows and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was established first by a fence and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own division was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a assembly of local people began commemorating their heritage. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th commemoration of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will begin operations. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Addressing the locals who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman division, which tore households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the same tavern, visiting the identical religious building and sending their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a annual period they seized the entire community, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to pull back across the brook. For a while, residents could continue to jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were required to present identity papers, even though all was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Increase of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side waving and calling out were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a western resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

It was related to me narratives such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent much of his professional career creating it. Residents were polled early on about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They chose a portion on the west fringe, near where one of their own managed to escape in the middle of the night with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily fortified.

Conserved Structures

Two guard towers are conserved alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most significant moments in the hamlet’s history. As we move, Robert Lebegern details the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers required special permission to tend to their produce; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between Western Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number persons (more than 300) were killed trying to traverse it in countryside regions than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of ideological spheres by staying low-profile and caring for their land. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k came to see each year, optical devices in possession, to look – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was shown around by the national security head.

25 years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a fictional village similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The launch of the new museum – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and large vehicle area – is likely to