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An creek so shallow you barely got your ankles wet divided a community for over four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of geography, the fifty residents of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, pastures and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the cold war. They had the bad luck to span Bavaria, in West Germany, and Thuringia in the East, a border that was demarcated first by a barrier and then by a partition. American soldiers nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Commemorating Historical Events

Months after their own wall was opened, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a collection of residents started commemorating their past. The project is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the demolition of the Berlin Wall, the Deutsch-Deutsches Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was formally opened by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display wasn’t quite ready. Telling the residents who lived through the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which ripped families apart and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

“You were observers of an inhuman split, which ripped families into pieces and turned neighbors into strangers.”

Bygone Origins

Right from its founding in 1810, the village cut across the Bavarian Kingdom and the Principality of Reuss, a noble lineage most famous for giving all its male descendants the name Heinrich and counting them consecutively by birth. As Steinmeier related to the crowd, the quirk did not stand in the manner of the locals gathering in the identical pub, attending the same church and enrolling their children to the identical educational institution.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. As soon as they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the stream. For a year they occupied the entire village, establishing their headquarters in a house on the western side, decorating it with a picture of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The Americans convinced them to retreat back over the brook. For a period, villagers could continue to jump across, though as controls increased they were required to display identification, although all knew who they were, and to come back at night.

Intensification of Boundary Measures

After that, in 1952, came metal barriers and the formal closing of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a wall was constructed, with mines, anti-tank obstacles and observation points. The villagers could continue to see each other by climbing elevations, but on the east side gesturing and shouting were forbidden. One woman was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for answering “same to you” to a West German villager who said her “happy new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told accounts including these tales by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has devoted a large part of his professional career developing it. Residents were asked early on about how what length of barrier they desired to preserve. They selected a portion on the west perimeter, near where one of their own was able to get away in the darkest hours with a ladder, after which the border was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 observation towers are conserved together with a series of tableaux showing the most dramatic events in the community’s chronicle. As we move, the director lists the rules: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Rural residents needed special permission to tend to their fields; the husband or wife could work the combine harvester but never the pair, for fear that they attempted to make a run for it. Soldiers stood watch.

Wider Background

The boundary between Western Germany and the GDR extended nearly 900 miles, from the northern sea in the northern part to here in the south. Berlin is recalled and honored the most, but more than double the number individuals (more than 300) lost their lives attempting to pass over it in provincial zones than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95% of escape attempts failed.

Community Daily Living

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or artisans, who adjusted to residing in the uncertain territory between 2 political systems by staying low-profile and tending to their fields. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For visitors, however, the hamlet became a type of pilgrimage. Roughly fifteen thousand visited annually, binoculars in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly go away. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the national security head.

25 years after reunification, the television series, a TV series about a made-up hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, led to renewed attention.

Present-Day Developments

The launch of the recently established museum – with a cafe, shop, cinema room and sizable car park – is probable to