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A stream so low you barely got your feet wet divided a settlement for more than four decades. Because of a chance of landscape, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, meadows and breathtaking vistas, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in Western Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a boundary that was established first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops dubbed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own barrier was breached, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a collection of residents began commemorating their heritage. The project is soon to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely prepared. Telling the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were observers of an cruel split, which ripped relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an cruel division, which tore households asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

Past Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its male members the title Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the oddity did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the same pub, going to the very same religious building and placing their young ones to the identical school.

Following WWII Division

Subsequently occurred the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a twelve months they took over the whole hamlet, setting up their headquarters in a house on the Bavarian territory side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back back over the creek. For a period, locals could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to show ID, although each person was aware who they were, and to return at evening.

Escalation of Frontier Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the official closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still observe each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police watch list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian local who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Creation

I was told accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a significant portion of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were asked early on about how how long a section wall they wished to preserve. They chose a stretch on the western edge, near where a local resident was able to escape in the middle of the night with a climbing device, following which the boundary was significantly reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

A pair of observation towers are maintained together with a series of tableaux depicting the most significant dates in the community’s past. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern enumerates the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers required particular approval to look after their fields; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances the two, lest they tried to make a run for it. Armed guards kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The boundary between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the north to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and documented the most, but over double the number individuals (exceeding 300) were killed seeking to traverse it in rural areas than in the metropolis. Lebegern informs me that 95% of efforts to cross failed.

Village Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s residents were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by staying low-profile and caring for their farms. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a kind of site of interest. About 15,000 came to visit every year, binoculars in hand, to look – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village like Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and large car park – is probable to