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A creek so shallow you hardly got your feet wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a wall. United States military personnel called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Several months after their own division was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started documenting their heritage. The work is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally opened by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite prepared. Telling the villagers who experienced the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore families apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the gathering, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the residents drinking in the very same tavern, visiting the identical church and sending their children to the identical school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the World War II. As soon as they came, the Russians installed wood stakes by the stream. For a year they took over the whole community, setting up their command in a house on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to go back at night.

Intensification of Border Measures

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the formal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with mines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The villagers could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and calling out were banned. A female resident was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a western resident who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard stories like these tales by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his occupational time building it. Locals were polled in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to maintain. They selected a section on the west perimeter, near where a local resident succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Preserved Installations

A pair of watchtowers are conserved alongside a set of exhibits showing the most dramatic moments in the hamlet’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their fields; the partner could work the harvesting machine but not the two, for fear that they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most frequently, but over twice as many individuals (well over 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern tells me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Village Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their land. They did not endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, the director states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of destination. Roughly 15k came to see annually, viewing tools in possession, to look – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a made-up hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed interest.

Current Developments

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and big vehicle area – is likely to