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An stream so low you hardly got your ankles wet split a village for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a barrier and then by a partition. United States military personnel called it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their nation had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers started commemorating their heritage. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal split, which tore households apart and turned local residents into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which pulled households into pieces and turned local residents into foreigners.”

Historical Context

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the oddity never stood in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the very same inn, going to the same place of worship and enrolling their children to the very same school.

After the War Separation

Subsequently occurred the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the brook. For a annual period they seized the complete hamlet, establishing their control center in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a image of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to retreat across the creek. For a period, locals could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were required to present identity papers, even though everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at evening.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The villagers could continue to see each other by ascending hills, but on the east side waving and calling out were forbidden. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “likewise” to a Bavarian villager who wished her “good new year”.

Exhibition Center Creation

I heard stories such as these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how what length of structure they wanted to maintain. They selected a stretch on the western edge, close to where a local resident was able to flee in the dead of night with a ladder, after which the frontier was substantially strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

2 guard towers are conserved in addition to a series of exhibits showing the most impactful dates in the hamlet’s history. As we move, the director enumerates the restrictions: not a single person could get closer than 5km of the frontier. Rural residents needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the partner could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel were on duty.

Larger Context

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the Baltic coast in the north to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the greatest, but over two times more persons (more than 300) died seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the grey zone between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their farms. They did not supported the socialist government nor resisted it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly 15k visited each year, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then quickly depart. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a broadcast production about a made-up community resembling Mödlareuth, caused fresh attention.

Current Developments

The opening of the new museum – with a restaurant, boutique, movie theater and sizable parking lot – is probable to