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A creek so narrow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of topography, the fifty inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement bordered by pine forests, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the Cold War tensions. They had the misfortune to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Soviet sector, a frontier that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Small Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

A few months after their own wall was torn down, and before their state had reunified in 1990, a assembly of villagers started commemorating their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was publicly opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not completely ready. Speaking to the residents who endured the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were observers of an inhuman split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were witnesses of an brutal separation, which ripped households apart and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Origins

Even at its establishment in 1810, the village spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for giving all its men the name Heinrich and labeling them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier informed the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the path of the inhabitants drinking in the very same pub, going to the same religious building and enrolling their kids to the same school.

After the War Division

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they came, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they took over the whole village, setting up their headquarters in a dwelling on the Bavarian territory side, adorning it with a image of Stalin and a red star. The American soldiers convinced them to withdraw to the other side of the creek. For a period, residents could still hop over, though as restrictions increased they were forced to present identification, despite the fact that everyone was aware who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Controls

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the boundary. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a concrete structure was built, with landmines, vehicle barriers and guard posts. The residents could still view each other by ascending elevations, but on the Soviet side signaling and calling out were forbidden. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a western resident who wished her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told narratives like these by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a significant portion of his professional career developing it. Residents were consulted at an early stage about how what length of wall they wanted to maintain. They opted for a portion on the west edge, near where one of their own managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the boundary was heavily reinforced.

Preserved Installations

Two observation towers are conserved in addition to a series of displays illustrating the most dramatic moments in the village’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen enumerates the regulations: nobody could get closer than 5km of the border. Farmers required special permission to care for their crops; the spouse could use the combine harvester but never the pair, lest they attempted to escape. Soldiers kept guard.

Broader Context

The frontier between West Germany and the German Democratic Republic ran 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but in excess of double the number individuals (well over 300) died trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern tells me that almost all of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

Most of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or artisans, who accommodated to residing in the grey zone between 2 belief systems by keeping their heads down and tending to their fields. They neither endorsed the communist regime nor opposed it, Robert Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a type of destination. Roughly 15,000 visited every year, optical devices in their hands, to stare – and then rapidly depart. In 1983, the US president, George Bush, was guided by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a television program about a fictional community resembling Mödlareuth, caused new attention.

Current Developments

The launch of the new museum – with a cafe, boutique, cinema room and large vehicle area – is probable to