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An brook so shallow you hardly got your ankles wet split a settlement for in excess of four decades of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the fifty locals of Mödlareuth, a small village encircled by pine forests, fields and stunning views, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel dubbed it Small Berlin.

Preserving History

Several months after their own wall was breached, and before their country had become one in 1990, a group of villagers began commemorating their past. The effort is close to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not entirely finished. Speaking to the locals who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman separation, which tore households asunder and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were witnesses of an inhuman division, which tore relatives apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most famous for bestowing all its male descendants the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the oddity never stood in the way of the inhabitants gathering in the very same tavern, visiting the identical place of worship and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the World War II. Immediately after they came, the Russians installed wooden posts by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the entire village, setting up their control center in a building on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a communist symbol. The US forces urged them to withdraw across the creek. For a while, residents could still cross over, though as limitations tightened they were obliged to show ID, even though each person understood who they were, and to return at after dark.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the legal sealing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was constructed, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The villagers could still see each other by scaling slopes, but on the Soviet side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was added to a GDR intelligence watch list for responding “same to you” to a western villager who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I heard accounts including these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a significant portion of his occupational time building it. Locals were consulted at an early stage about how how long a section wall they wanted to keep. They chose a portion on the west edge, close to where one of their own managed to flee in the dead of night with a climbing device, after which the boundary was heavily strengthened.

Conserved Buildings

A pair of guard towers are conserved together with a set of tableaux illustrating the most dramatic events in the hamlet’s history. As we walk, the director lists the regulations: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could use the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they attempted to escape. Soldiers were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany stretched 1,400 kilometers, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most, but more than twice as many people (exceeding 300) lost their lives seeking to traverse it in provincial zones than in the urban center. Lebegern informs me that 95% of attempts to flee failed.

Community Life

Most of Mödlareuth’s residents were rural laborers or artisans, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their farms. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern states.

Tourism

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a sort of site of interest. About 15k came to see annually, optical devices in possession, to stare – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a fictional village resembling Mödlareuth, led to new curiosity.

Modern Developments

The inauguration of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, boutique, cinema room and large vehicle area – is likely to