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A brook so low you hardly got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades of time. By an accident of landscape, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, meadows and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a frontier that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own barrier was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers began documenting their heritage. The project is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not entirely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman split, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into strangers.”

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

Historical Context

Even at its creation in 1810, the community straddled the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house best known for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier told the crowd, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the inhabitants socializing in the identical inn, attending the very same place of worship and sending their kids to the same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Then came the second world war. The moment they appeared, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the stream. For a year they occupied the whole community, establishing their command in a house on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces urged them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a period, locals could continue to cross over, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Frontier Restrictions

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with mines, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a East German secret police watch list for responding “back at you” to a western resident who greeted her “happy new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I was told narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his working life building it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the Bavarian perimeter, near where one of their own managed to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, subsequently the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are preserved together with a set of tableaux depicting the most impactful events in the village’s history. As we walk, the director details the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers needed special permission to look after their crops; the partner could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, lest they sought to flee. Military personnel were on duty.

Broader Perspective

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but in excess of double the number persons (exceeding 300) lost their lives trying to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who adapted to living in the uncertain territory between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their land. They nor did they supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, viewing tools in possession, to stare – and then quickly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is probable to