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An brook so narrow you barely got your feet wet split a village for over four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a frontier that was established first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own division was opened, and even before their state had reunified in 1990, a collection of villagers started documenting their history. The effort is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite finished. Telling the villagers who lived through the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which tore families asunder and turned neighbors into aliens.”

“You were observers of an cruel separation, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Bygone Origins

Starting at its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same tavern, going to the same religious building and enrolling their young ones to the very same educational institution.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the global conflict. As soon as they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the complete hamlet, creating their command in a house on the Bavarian side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers persuaded them to retreat to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to display identification, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Border Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could still observe each other by scaling elevations, but on the eastern side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A female resident was put on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a West German villager who wished her “good new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has spent a significant portion of his working life developing it. Residents were asked in the initial phases about how what length of barrier they wished to keep. They chose a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where one of their own was able to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was substantially strengthened.

Maintained Buildings

Two watchtowers are preserved together with a collection of exhibits showing the most impactful events in the community’s past. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the rules: nobody could approach 5km of the frontier. Farmers had to obtain special permission to care for their produce; the husband or wife could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances both, lest they sought to flee. Armed guards kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and honored the most frequently, but over double the number people (exceeding 300) were killed trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern reminds me that almost all of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their farms. They neither supported the socialist government nor fought it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the settlement became a sort of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited every year, optical devices in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and large parking lot – is likely to