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A brook so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the 50 locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own division was opened, and even before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of villagers set about documenting their heritage. The project is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially inaugurated by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition wasn’t quite ready. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an cruel split, which pulled households apart and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an cruel split, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Background

Right from its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Princely State of Reuss, a princely house most renowned for bestowing all its male members the designation Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by date of birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the peculiarity did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the identical pub, visiting the very same church and sending their children to the same educational institution.

Following WWII Split

Then came the second world war. As soon as they arrived, the Soviet forces erected wood stakes by the stream. For a year they seized the complete community, setting up their control center in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to retreat back over the stream. For a time, residents could still jump across, though as limitations tightened they were required to display identity papers, although all knew who they were, and to go back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Restrictions

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could continue to observe each other by climbing elevations, but on the Soviet side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. A local woman was put on a GDR intelligence surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a West German local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has spent a large part of his professional career building it. Residents were polled early on about how much barrier they wanted to preserve. They opted for a section on the Bavarian fringe, close to where a local resident managed to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are conserved in addition to a series of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director lists the restrictions: no one could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers needed particular approval to look after their produce; the partner could use the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they sought to flee. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Background

The frontier between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the north to the south in the south. Berlin is commemorated and documented the most, but over two times more people (exceeding 300) lost their lives attempting to traverse it in rural areas than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95% of escape attempts were unsuccessful.

Hamlet Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They did not backed the East German authorities nor fought it, the director explains.

Interest

For visitors, however, the village became a sort of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited each year, binoculars in their hands, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

Twenty-five years after reunification, the TV show, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, led to fresh attention.

Present-Day Changes

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and sizable car park – is likely to