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A creek so low you scarcely got your feet wet separated a village for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the half a hundred residents of Mödlareuth, a small village bordered by evergreen groves, pastures and spectacular scenery, found themselves at the core of the Cold War conflict. They had the unfortunate circumstance to straddle Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a frontier that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. US troops dubbed it Small Berlin.

Memorialising History

Months after their own wall was breached, and even before their country had become one in 1990, a assembly of local people started memorialising their history. The effort is about to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual remembrance of the collapse of the Wall in Berlin, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was publicly launched by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely finished. Speaking to the residents who endured the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an brutal division, which tore relatives asunder and turned neighbours into aliens.”

“You were bystanders of an inhuman division, which pulled relatives asunder and turned neighbours into foreigners.”

Past Origins

Even at its founding in 1810, the hamlet spanned the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most renowned for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and counting them sequentially by birth. As Steinmeier told the audience, the peculiarity never stood in the path of the residents gathering in the identical inn, visiting the same religious building and placing their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Split

Subsequently occurred the World War II. The moment they came, the Russians installed wood stakes by the stream. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, establishing their headquarters in a dwelling on the western side, embellishing it with a portrait of Stalin and a red star. The Americans convinced them to pull back to the other side of the creek. For a while, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations increased they were required to present identity papers, even though everyone understood who they were, and to return at night.

Intensification of Frontier Measures

Then, in 1952, came wire fencing and the legal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was erected, with landmines, anti-tank obstacles and guard posts. The residents could still see each other by climbing slopes, but on the Soviet side gesturing and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was placed on a East German secret police monitoring list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who wished her “prosperous new year”.

Exhibition Center Establishment

I was told accounts like these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career developing it. Locals were consulted in the initial phases about how how long a section barrier they wished to maintain. They opted for a stretch on the western edge, close to where one of their own succeeded to flee in the darkest hours with a climbing device, following which the boundary was substantially reinforced.

Preserved Structures

Two guard towers are preserved alongside a set of tableaux showing the most impactful moments in the hamlet’s history. As we stroll, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could get closer than 5km of the boundary. Rural residents required particular approval to tend to their crops; the husband or wife could use the agricultural equipment but under no circumstances both, for fear that they sought to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Wider Perspective

The boundary between West Germany and the GDR extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the north to the south in the southern region. Berlin is commemorated and memorialised the most, but in excess of double the number people (more than 300) died trying to cross it in countryside regions than in the metropolis. Robert Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of attempts to flee were unsuccessful.

Community Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were rural laborers or craftsmen, who adapted to dwelling in the grey zone between two ideological spheres by avoiding attention and looking after their land. They did not backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Interest

For tourists, however, the settlement became a type of pilgrimage. About 15,000 visited annually, viewing tools in their hands, to look – and then rapidly go away. In 1983, the United States leader, George Bush, was given a tour by the German defence minister.

Twenty five years after unification, Tannbach, a TV series about a made-up village similar to Mödlareuth, caused new curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The opening of the modern exhibition center – with a coffee shop, shop, movie theater and sizable car park – is expected to