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A creek so low you hardly got your ankles wet separated a settlement for in excess of four decades worth of time. Due to a quirk of landscape, the 50 residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by coniferous woods, pastures and breathtaking scenery, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the unfortunate circumstance to cross Bavaria, in Western Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a border that was established first by a enclosure and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own division was opened, and prior to their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started memorialising their heritage. The work is about to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the demolition of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally inaugurated by the national president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the first part of October, but the show was not entirely finished. Addressing the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier stated: “You were observers of an cruel split, which tore families into pieces and turned neighbours into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which tore relatives into pieces and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Context

Even at its establishment in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a princely house best known for giving all its men the designation Heinrich and counting them in order by birth. As Steinmeier told the gathering, the oddity was never an obstacle in the path of the residents gathering in the very same tavern, going to the same religious building and placing their kids to the very same school.

After the War Division

Then came the World War II. As soon as they arrived, the Russian troops installed timber poles by the creek. For a annual period they seized the entire village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the Bavarian side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a communist symbol. The American soldiers urged them to pull back to the other side of the brook. For a while, residents could still hop over, though as controls became stricter they were obliged to display ID, despite the fact that each person understood who they were, and to go back at evening.

Escalation of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came barbed wire and the formal closing of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and watchtowers. The residents could still view each other by climbing slopes, but on the eastern side waving and yelling were banned. One woman was put on a Stasi surveillance list for replying “back at you” to a Bavarian local who wished her “good new year”.

Heritage Site Creation

I was told stories such as these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the museum’s director, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time creating it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how how long a section structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the western edge, adjacent to where a local resident managed to get away in the darkest hours with a scaling tool, subsequently the border was significantly fortified.

Preserved Buildings

2 watchtowers are maintained in addition to a series of tableaux showing the most significant dates in the village’s chronicle. As we stroll, the director details the restrictions: not a single person could come within 5km of the boundary. Farmers had to obtain specific authorization to look after their crops; the husband or wife could work the agricultural equipment but never both, lest they sought to escape. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Perspective

The boundary between Western Germany and the German Democratic Republic extended nearly 900 miles, from the Baltic Sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and memorialised the most frequently, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) were killed seeking to pass over it in countryside regions than in the urban center. Lebegern reminds me that 95 percent of efforts to cross failed.

Hamlet Life

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were rural laborers or skilled workers, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between a pair of political systems by keeping their heads down and caring for their land. They did not endorsed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern clarifies.

Visitors

For tourists, however, the village became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly 15k came to see each year, optical devices in their hands, to gawp – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was shown around by the German defence minister.

Twenty-five years after unification, the TV show, a TV series about a imaginary village resembling Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed attention.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the new museum – with a coffee shop, boutique, film screening area and large parking lot – is likely to