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A creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a village for over four decades of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span the Bavarian region, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating History

Months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people set about memorialising their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbors into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Background

Even at its establishment in 1810, the community cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for giving all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the very same tavern, visiting the very same place of worship and placing their kids to the same school.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they arrived, the Russian troops put up timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they seized the complete village, creating their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat across the brook. For a period, residents could continue to hop over, though as controls increased they were required to show identification, although each person understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a wall was constructed, with landmines, tank traps and watchtowers. The locals could still see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and calling out were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for answering “likewise” to a West German villager who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Heritage Site Establishment

I heard accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted much of his professional career building it. Residents were asked early on about how what length of wall they desired to preserve. They selected a section on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are conserved alongside a collection of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s past. As we move, Lebergen lists the regulations: nobody could come within 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain particular approval to tend to their crops; the partner could work the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the pair, lest they attempted to flee. Soldiers were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The border between the Federal Republic and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over double the number persons (more than 300) died attempting to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Existence

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the uncertain territory between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They nor did they backed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to gawp – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a television program about a fictional community like Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Current Developments

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and large vehicle area – is expected to