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An creek so shallow you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking views, found themselves at the center of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a fence and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had become one in 1990, a group of villagers began commemorating their past. The work is close to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the German barrier, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely ready. Speaking to the villagers who lived through the former times, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an cruel split, which tore households apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal split, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village straddled the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for bestowing all its male members the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the quirk was never an obstacle in the way of the locals drinking in the very same inn, going to the very same place of worship and enrolling their children to the very same educational institution.

Post-War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. The moment they came, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the entire community, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the creek. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as restrictions tightened they were required to present identity papers, despite the fact that each person knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Increase of Border Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending slopes, but on the eastern side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was put on a Stasi monitoring list for replying “likewise” to a western villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Development

It was related to me stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has dedicated a significant portion of his working life creating it. Villagers were asked at an early stage about how what length of wall they desired to preserve. They selected a portion on the Bavarian fringe, near where a villager succeeded to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the border was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Structures

Two watchtowers are conserved in addition to a set of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the community’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Farmers required specific authorization to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could operate the combine harvester but never both, in case they attempted to flee. Armed guards were on duty.

Broader Context

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but in excess of twice as many individuals (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Community Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or skilled workers, who adjusted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a kind of site of interest. Approximately 15,000 visited every year, binoculars in possession, to stare – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh curiosity.

Current Evolutions

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and large car park – is likely to