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An creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet divided a community for more than four decades. Due to a quirk of geography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by coniferous woods, fields and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a barrier and then by a wall. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their state had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers set about documenting their history. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show wasn’t quite prepared. Addressing the residents who lived through the former times, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel division, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel split, which pulled households into pieces and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Historical Background

Starting at its creation in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its men the title Heinrich and labeling them consecutively by date of birth. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the manner of the inhabitants gathering in the same inn, attending the same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same learning center.

Post-War Split

Then came the World War II. The moment they arrived, the Russians put up timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers convinced them to pull back to the other side of the stream. For a time, locals could still cross over, though as restrictions tightened they were obliged to show identity papers, even though all understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Increase of Border Restrictions

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The locals could continue to observe each other by ascending hills, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were banned. A local woman was placed on a Stasi surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a West German resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Museum Development

I was told stories including these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wanted to preserve. They selected a stretch on the Bavarian perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to escape in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, after which the frontier was substantially reinforced.

Maintained Installations

Two watchtowers are preserved in addition to a collection of displays showing the most significant moments in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director enumerates the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to care for their crops; the husband or wife could operate the harvesting machine but not the pair, for fear that they tried to flee. Military personnel kept guard.

Wider Background

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the GDR stretched nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the greatest, but in excess of double the number individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. the director reminds me that almost all of attempts to flee did not succeed.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or craftsmen, who accommodated to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and looking after their fields. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director states.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. About fifteen thousand visited every year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after merger, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary community similar to Mödlareuth, caused fresh curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The inauguration of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, cinema room and sizable vehicle area – is probable to