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A creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a settlement for over four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of geography, the 50 inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by coniferous woods, pastures and spectacular vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a border that was marked first by a fence and then by a partition. United States military personnel nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Memorialising Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and even before their nation had unified again in 1990, a group of villagers set about memorialising their past. The project is soon to reach completion: on 9 November, the thirty-sixth commemoration of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the exhibition was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who experienced the old days, Steinmeier said: “You were bystanders of an brutal separation, which ripped households into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were observers of an brutal separation, which tore families into pieces and turned local residents into aliens.”

Past Context

Starting at its creation in 1810, the community spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Princely State of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for bestowing all its men the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the locals drinking in the very same tavern, attending the very same place of worship and enrolling their children to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Then came the global conflict. Immediately after they appeared, the Russian troops erected wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they took over the entire community, establishing their control center in a house on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The US forces convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as limitations tightened they were required to display identification, although all understood who they were, and to come back at after dark.

Intensification of Frontier Controls

Subsequently, in 1952, came metal barriers and the legal shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was built, with explosives, tank traps and observation points. The villagers could still view each other by scaling hills, but on the Soviet side signaling and yelling were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “likewise” to a Bavarian local who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Development

I was told narratives including these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has devoted a large part of his occupational time creating it. Locals were asked in the initial phases about how much wall they wished to keep. They opted for a portion on the western perimeter, near where one of their own was able to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, subsequently the frontier was heavily reinforced.

Maintained Buildings

Two observation towers are maintained alongside a collection of exhibits illustrating the most impactful moments in the community’s past. As we walk, Lebergen lists the regulations: nobody could approach 5km of the border. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their crops; the spouse could work the harvesting machine but never both, lest they sought to make a run for it. Armed guards were on duty.

Wider Perspective

The border between West Germany and the GDR stretched 1,400km, from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the greatest, but in excess of twice as many people (well over 300) lost their lives seeking to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. the director tells me that almost all of attempts to flee failed.

Village Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were farmers or skilled workers, who adapted to residing in the ambiguous area between two ideological spheres by keeping their heads down and looking after their farms. They neither endorsed the socialist government nor resisted it, the director explains.

Tourism

For sightseers, however, the hamlet became a sort of destination. Roughly 15,000 came to visit annually, optical devices in hand, to gawp – and then quickly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was given a tour by the national security head.

Twenty five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a made-up village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in fresh interest.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a restaurant, shop, movie theater and big car park – is likely to