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A creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet separated a community for more than four decades worth of time. By an accident of topography, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement encircled by pine forests, meadows and stunning scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the misfortune to cross the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the Soviet sector, a boundary that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a wall. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Preserving the Past

Several months after their own division was torn down, and prior to their nation had reunified in 1990, a assembly of local people started documenting their history. The work is about to reach completion: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the exhibition was not completely prepared. Speaking to the locals who lived through the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives into pieces and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which ripped relatives apart and turned neighbors into aliens.”

Past Origins

Starting at its founding in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier related to the gathering, the oddity never stood in the path of the locals drinking in the very same inn, visiting the same place of worship and placing their kids to the same school.

Following WWII Division

Then came the second world war. As soon as they came, the Russian troops erected wooden posts by the creek. For a annual period they occupied the whole hamlet, creating their control center in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, embellishing it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw back over the creek. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were obliged to display identity papers, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal sealing of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with landmines, vehicle barriers and watchtowers. The locals could continue to view each other by ascending slopes, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a West German resident who said her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard narratives such as these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career building it. Locals were polled at an early stage about how much wall they wanted to preserve. They selected a section on the west edge, near where a local resident managed to escape in the dead of night with a ladder, following which the border was significantly strengthened.

Preserved Buildings

Two guard towers are maintained in addition to a series of tableaux depicting the most significant dates in the hamlet’s chronicle. As we stroll, Robert Lebegern lists the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the border. Agricultural workers needed particular approval to tend to their crops; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but under no circumstances the two, for fear that they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards stood watch.

Larger Context

The boundary between West Germany and the East Germany ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most frequently, but more than two times more persons (well over 300) died trying to pass over it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Community Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or artisans, who accommodated to dwelling in the ambiguous area between a pair of belief systems by avoiding attention and caring for their land. They nor did they backed the socialist government nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the village became a sort of site of interest. About 15k came to visit each year, optical devices in their hands, to look – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was shown around by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after merger, the television series, a television program about a made-up community like Mödlareuth, led to renewed interest.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, boutique, cinema room and big car park – is expected to