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An creek so narrow you hardly got your feet wet separated a village for more than four decades worth of time. Because of a chance of landscape, the half a hundred inhabitants of Mödlareuth, a tiny settlement surrounded by pine forests, fields and spectacular views, found themselves at the heart of the cold war. They had the bad luck to cross the Bavarian region, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the Eastern part, a boundary that was marked first by a fence and then by a barricade. American soldiers called it Little Berlin.

Commemorating the Past

Several months after their own division was breached, and before their country had unified again in 1990, a group of local people started commemorating their history. The work is close to come to fruition: on 9 November, the 36th anniversary of the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will inaugurate. It was officially launched by the head of state, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in the beginning of October, but the show was not completely prepared. Telling the locals who lived through the past era, Steinmeier said: “You were witnesses of an inhuman separation, which pulled relatives apart and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were bystanders of an brutal division, which pulled families into pieces and turned neighbours into aliens.”

Past Origins

Right from its creation in 1810, the village straddled the Kingdom of Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its men the title Heinrich and numbering them in order by birth. As Steinmeier informed the audience, the oddity did not stand in the way of the inhabitants drinking in the identical inn, going to the identical religious building and enrolling their young ones to the very same learning center.

Following WWII Division

Next arrived the global conflict. Immediately after they arrived, the Soviet forces erected timber poles by the creek. For a twelve months they occupied the complete village, establishing their control center in a dwelling on the western side, decorating it with a image of Stalin and a Soviet emblem. The American soldiers persuaded them to pull back across the creek. For a time, villagers could still jump across, though as limitations became stricter they were forced to show ID, although everyone knew who they were, and to return at night.

Increase of Border Controls

After that, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the frontier. In 1966, as in Berlin five years earlier, a concrete structure was constructed, with mines, tank traps and guard posts. The locals could still view each other by scaling slopes, but on the eastern side signaling and yelling were prohibited. A local woman was added to a GDR intelligence surveillance list for responding “same to you” to a Bavarian resident who said her “happy new year”.

Heritage Site Development

I was told narratives like these incidents by Robert Lebegern, the head of the institution, who has devoted a large part of his working life building it. Locals were asked early on about how how long a section wall they wished to maintain. They opted for a section on the western perimeter, adjacent to where a local resident was able to get away in the dead of night with a scaling tool, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Maintained Structures

2 watchtowers are preserved together with a collection of displays illustrating the most impactful moments in the community’s chronicle. As we walk, Lebergen details the restrictions: no one could approach 5km of the boundary. Farmers required special permission to look after their produce; the spouse could operate the combine harvester but under no circumstances both, in case they sought to flee. Soldiers kept guard.

Larger Perspective

The border between Western Germany and the East Germany extended 1,400km, from the northern sea in the northern part to this location in the south. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but over two times more people (more than 300) lost their lives trying to cross it in rural areas than in the big city. Lebegern informs me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Hamlet Existence

The majority of Mödlareuth’s locals were agricultural workers or craftsmen, who accommodated to dwelling in the grey zone between 2 political systems by avoiding attention and tending to their land. They neither backed the East German authorities nor opposed it, the director clarifies.

Interest

For tourists, however, the hamlet became a type of site of interest. Approximately 15k came to visit every year, binoculars in hand, to stare – and then rapidly leave. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty-five years after reunification, Tannbach, a television program about a fictional hamlet similar to Mödlareuth, resulted in renewed curiosity.

Present-Day Evolutions

The launch of the recently established museum – with a coffee shop, shop, film screening area and sizable car park – is likely to