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A stream so shallow you scarcely got your feet wet divided a village for over four decades. By an accident of geography, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by coniferous woods, fields and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the cold war. They had the misfortune to span the Bavarian region, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was established first by a barrier and then by a barricade. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising the Past

A few months after their own division was opened, and before their nation had become one in 1990, a collection of local people set about documenting their history. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly inaugurated by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the show was not entirely finished. Speaking to the residents who experienced the past era, Steinmeier stated: “You were witnesses of an cruel division, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled families apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

Historical Origins

Right from its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for bestowing all its men the designation Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth order. As Steinmeier related to the audience, the quirk never stood in the path of the inhabitants socializing in the very same tavern, attending the identical religious building and enrolling their children to the same learning center.

Post-War Division

Next arrived the second world war. The moment they arrived, the Russian troops erected timber poles by the brook. For a twelve months they seized the whole village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers urged them to withdraw across the stream. For a while, locals could still cross over, though as limitations increased they were forced to present identity papers, even though each person was aware who they were, and to go back at night.

Increase of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a barrier was erected, with explosives, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by ascending slopes, but on the east side signaling and shouting were prohibited. One woman was added to a East German secret police surveillance list for replying “likewise” to a Bavarian resident who greeted her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I heard stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has spent a large part of his occupational time developing it. Villagers were consulted early on about how much wall they wished to keep. They opted for a section on the west fringe, adjacent to where a villager was able to flee in the dead of night with a scaling tool, after which the boundary was significantly fortified.

Preserved Installations

2 observation towers are preserved together with a series of exhibits showing the most dramatic events in the community’s history. As we stroll, the director lists the regulations: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents had to obtain specific authorization to tend to their produce; the spouse could operate the agricultural equipment but not the two, in case they tried to make a run for it. Military personnel stood watch.

Larger Perspective

The frontier between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic ran nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is remembered and memorialised the most, but more than twice as many persons (well over 300) lost their lives attempting to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. the director tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between 2 belief systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither endorsed the East German authorities nor fought it, Robert Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the settlement became a sort of site of interest. About 15k visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Current Changes

The opening of the new museum – with a cafe, store, cinema room and large parking lot – is expected to