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A stream so low you barely got your feet wet split a settlement for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a fence and then by a wall. American soldiers nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

A few months after their own barrier was opened, and even before their nation had become one in 1990, a group of local people began memorialising their history. The effort is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely ready. Telling the locals who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an inhuman division, which ripped families asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an brutal division, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage best known for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the quirk never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the identical pub, visiting the same religious building and placing their kids to the very same learning center.

After the War Separation

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed timber poles by the creek. For a year they seized the entire community, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces convinced them to retreat to the other side of the stream. For a period, residents could still cross over, though as controls increased they were required to display identification, even though everyone knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Increase of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by climbing elevations, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were banned. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for replying “likewise” to a western local who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I heard stories like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career creating it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how much barrier they desired to preserve. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, adjacent to where one of their own succeeded to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Conserved Structures

Two observation towers are preserved together with a set of exhibits showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, Lebergen lists the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Farmers required specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, lest they tried to escape. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the greatest, but over double the number people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. the director tells me that almost all of efforts to cross did not succeed.

Hamlet Existence

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to living in the ambiguous area between two belief systems by staying low-profile and tending to their farms. They did not supported the communist regime nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of site of interest. Roughly 15k visited each year, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the TV show, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet like Mödlareuth, led to renewed curiosity.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is expected to