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A stream so narrow you scarcely got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a hamlet encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to span Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their heritage. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely finished. Telling the villagers who endured the past era, Steinmeier remarked: “You were bystanders of an cruel split, which pulled families apart and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Context

Even at its founding in 1810, the community cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the very same tavern, going to the very same church and enrolling their kids to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Split

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they seized the whole village, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to withdraw across the stream. For a period, residents could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to display identity papers, despite the fact that all understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin previously in 1961, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by scaling elevations, but on the east side waving and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence watch list for answering “same to you” to a western villager who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told accounts such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Residents were polled in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wanted to keep. They chose a section on the west fringe, close to where a local resident managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, after which the frontier was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a series of displays showing the most significant events in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the rules: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but never both, in case they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Context

The frontier between Western Germany and the GDR ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but in excess of two times more individuals (well over 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern reminds me that almost all of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Community Life

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between two belief systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither backed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k visited annually, binoculars in possession, to gawp – and then swiftly leave. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Changes

The inauguration of the new museum – with a coffee shop, store, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to